The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (11 page)

"That's wonderful," enthused Max, "absolutely wonderful. And as the photon storms gather in swirling crowds around us, preparing to tear apart the last of the red hot suns, I know you're all going to settle back and enjoy with me what I know we will find all an immensely exciting and terminal experience."
He paused. He caught the audience with a glittering eye.
"Believe me, ladies and gentlemen," he said, "there's nothing penultimate about this one."
He paused again. Tonight his timing was immaculate. Time after time he had done this show, night after night. Not that the word night had any meaning here at the extremity of time. All there was was the endless repetition of the final moment, as the Restaurant rocked slowly forward over the brink of time's furthest edge - and back again. This "night" was good though, the audience was writhing in the palm of his sickly hand. His voice dropped. They had to strain to hear him.
"This," he said, "really is the absolute end, the final chilling desolation, in which the whole majestic sweep of creation becomes extinct. This ladies and gentlemen is the proverbial `it'."
He dropped his voice still lower. In the stillness, a fly would not have dared cleat its throat.
"After this," he said, "there is nothing. Void. Emptiness. Oblivion. Absolute nothing ..."
His eyes glittered again - or did they twinkle?"
"Nothing ... except of course for the sweet trolley, and a fine selection of Aldebaran liqueurs!"
The band gave him a musical sting. He wished they wouldn't, he didn't need it, not an artist of his calibre. He could play the audience like his own musical instrument. They were laughing with relief. He followed o n.
"And for once," he cried cheerily, "you don't need to worry about having a hangover in the morning - because there won't be any more mornings!"
He beamed at his happy, laughing audience. He glanced up at the sky, going through the same dead routine every night, but his glance was only for a fraction of a second. He trusted it to do its job, as one professional trusts another.
"And now," he said, strutting about the stage, "at the risk of putting a damper on the wonderful sense of doom and futility here this evening, I would like to welcome a few parties."
He pulled a card from his pocket.
"Do we have ..." he put up a hand to hold back the cheers, "Do we have a party here from the Zansellquasure Flamarion Bridge Club from beyond the Vortvoid of Qvarne? Are they here?"
A rousing cheer came from the back, but he pretended not to hear. He peered around trying to find them.
"Are they here?" he asked again, to elict a louder cheer.
He got it, as he always did.
"Ah, there they are. Well, last bids lads - and no cheating, remember this is a very solemn moment."
He lapped up the laughter.
"And do we also have, do we have ... a party of minor deities from the Halls of Asgard?"
Away to his right came a rumble of thunder. Lightning arced across the stage. A small group of hairy men with helmets sat looking very pleased with themselves, and raised their glasses to him.
Hasbeens, he thought to himself.
"Careful with that hammer, sir," he said.
They did their trick with the lightning again. Max gave them a very thin lipped smile.
"And thirdly," he said, "thirdly a party of Young Conservatives from Sirius B, are they here?"
A party of smartly dressed young dogs stopped throwing rolls at each other and started throwing rolls at the stage. They yapped and barked unintelligibly.
"Yes," said Max, "well this is all your fault, you realize that?"
"And finally," said Max, quieting the audience down and putting on his solemn face, "finally I believe we have with us here tonight, a party of believers, very devout believers, from the Church of the Second Coming of the Great Prophet Zarquon."
There were about twenty of them, sitting right out on the edge of the floor, ascetically dressed, sipping mineral water nervously, and staying apart from the festivities. They blinked resentfully as the spotlight was turned on them.
"There they are," said Max, "sitting there, patiently. He said he'd come again, and he's kept you waiting a long time, so let's hope he's hurrying fellas, because he's only got eight minutes left!"
The party of Zarquon's followers sat rigid, refusing to be buffeted by the waves of uncharitable laughter which swept over them.
Max restrained his audience.
"No, but seriously though folks, seriously though, no offence meant. No, I know we shouldn't make fun of deeply held beliefs, so I think a big hand please for the Great Prophet Zarquon ..." The audience clapped respectfully.
"... wherever he's got to!"
He blew a kiss to the stony-faced party and returned to the centre of the stage.
He grabbed a tall stool and sat on it.
"It's marvellous though," he rattled on, "to see so many of you here tonight - no isn't it though? Yes, absolutely marvellous. Because I know that so many of you come here time and time again, which I think is really wonderful, to come and watch this final end of everything, and then return home to your own eras ... and raise families, strive for new and better societies, fight terrible wars for what you know to be right ... it really gives one hope for the future of all lifekind. Except of course," he waved at the blitzing turmoil above and around them, "that we know it hasn't got one ..."
Arthur turned to Ford - he hadn't quite got this place worked out in his mind.
"Look, surely," he said, "if the Universe is about to end ... don't we go with it?"
Ford gave him a three-Pan-Galactic-Gargle-Blaster look, in other words a rather unsteady one.
"No," he said, "look," he said, "as soon as you come into this dive you get held in this sort of amazing force-shielded temporal warp thing. I think."
"Oh," said Arthur. He turned his attention back to a bowl of soup he'd managed to get from the waiter to replace his steak.
"Look," said Ford, "I'll show you."
He grabbed at a napkin off the table and fumbled hopelessly with it.
"Look," he said again, "imagine this napkin, right, as the temporal Universe, right? And this spoon as a transductional mode in the matter curve ..."
It took him a while to say this last part, and Arthur hated to interrupt him.
"That's the spoon I was eating with," he said.
"Alright," said Ford, "imagine this spoon ..." he found a small wooden spoon on a tray of relishes, "this spoon ..." but found it rather tricky to pick up, "no, better still this fork ..."
"Hey would you let go of my fork?" snapped Zaphod.

"Alright," said Ford, "alright, alright. Why don't we say ... why don't we say that this wine glass is the temporal Universe ..." "What, the one you've just knocked on the floor?"
"Did I do that?"
"Yes."
"Alright," said Ford, "forget that. I mean ... I mean, look, do you know - do you know how the Universe actually began for a kick off?"
"Probably not," said Arthur, who wished he'd never embarked on any of this.
"Alright," said Ford, "imagine this. Right. You get this bath. Right. A large round bath. And it's made of ebony."
"Where from?" said Arthur, "Harrods was destroyed by the Vogons."
"Doesn't matter."
"So you keep saying."
"Listen."
"Alright."
"You get this bath, see? Imagine you've got this bath. And it's ebony. And it's conical."
"Conical?" said Arthur, "What sort of ..."
"Shhh!" said Ford. "It's conical. So what you do is, you see, you fill it with fine white sand, alright? Or sugar. Fine white sand, and/or sugar. Anything. Doesn't matter. Sugar's fine. And when it's full, you pull the plug out ... are you listening?"
"I'm listening."
"You pull the plug out, and it all just twirls away, twirls away you see, out of the plughole."
"I see."
"You don't see. You don't see at all. I haven't got to the clever bit yet. You want to hear the clever bit?"
"Tell me the clever bit."
"I'll tell you the clever bit."
Ford thought for a moment, trying to remember what the clever bit was.
"The clever bit," he said, "is this. You film it happening."
"Clever."
"That's not the clever bit. This is the clever bit, I remember now that this is the clever bit. The clever bit is that you then thread the film in the projector ... backwards!"
"Backwards?"
"Yes. Threading it backwards is definitely the clever bit. So then, you just sit and watch it, and everything just appears to spiral upwards out of the plughole and fill the bath. See?"
"And that's how the Universe began is it?" said Arthur.
"No," said Ford, "but it's a marvellous way to relax."
He reached for his wine glass.
"Where's my wine glass?" he said.
"It's on the floor."
"Ah."
Tipping back his chair to look for it, Ford collided with the small green waiter who was approaching the table carrying a portable telephone.
Ford excused himself to the waiter explaining that it was because he was extremely drunk.
The waiter said that that was quite alright and that he perfectly understood.
Ford thanked the waiter for his kind indulgence, attempted to tug his forelock, missed by six inches and slid under the table.
"Mr Zaphod Beeblebrox?" inquired the waiter.
"Er, yeah?" said Zaphod, glancing up from his third steak.
"There is a phone call for you."
"Hey, what?"
"A phone call, sir."
"For me? Here? Hey, but who knows where I am?"
One of his minds raced. The other dawdled lovingly over the food it was still shovelling in.
"Excuse me if I carry on, won't you?" said his eating head and carried on.
There were now so many people after him he'd lost count. He shouldn't have made such a conspicuous entrance. Hell, why not though, he thought. How do you know you're having fun if there's no one watching you have it?
"Maybe someone here tipped off the Galactic Police," said Trillian. "Everyone saw you come in." "You mean they want to arrest me over the phone?" said Zaphod, "Could be. I'm a pretty dangerous dude when I'm concerned."
"Yeah," said a voice from under the table, "you go to pieces so fast people get hit by the shrapnel."
"Hey, what is this, Judgment Day?" snapped Zaphod.
"Do we get to see that as well?" asked Arthur nervously.
"I'm in no hurry," muttered Zaphod, "OK, so who's the cat on the phone?" He kicked Ford. "Hey get up there, kid," he said to him, "I may need you."
"I am not," said the waiter, "personally acquainted with the metal gentlemen in question, sir ..."
"Metal?"
"Yes, sir."
"Did you say metal?"
"Yes, sir. I said that I am not personally acquainted with the metal gentleman in question ..."
"OK, carry on."
"But I am informed that he has been awaiting your return for a considerable number of millennia. It seems you left here somewhat precipitately."
"Left here?" said Zaphod, "are you being strange? We only just arrived here."
"Indeed, sir," persisted the waiter doggedly, "but before you arrived here, sir, I understand that you left here."
Zaphod tried this in one brain, then in the other.
"You're saying," he said, "that before we arrived here, we left here?"
This is going to be a long night, thought the waiter.
"Precisely, sir," he said.
"Put your analyst on danger money, baby," advised Zaphod.
"No, wait a minute," said Ford, emerging above table level again, "where exactly is here?"
"To be absolutely exact sir, it is Frogstar World B."
"But we just left there," protested Zaphod, "we left there and came to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe."
"Yes, sir," said the waiter, feeling that he was now into the home stretch and running well, "the one was constructed on the ruins of the other."
"Oh," said Arthur brightly, "you mean we've travelled in time but not in space."
"Listen you semi-evolved simian," cut in Zaphod, "go climb a tree will you?"
Arthur bristled.
"Go bang your heads together four-eyes," he advised Zaphod.
"No, no," the waiter said to Zaphod, "your monkey has got it right, sir."
Arthur stuttered in fury and said nothing apposite, or indeed coherent.
"You jumped forward ... I believe five hundred and seventy-six thousand million years whilst staying in exactly the same place," explained the waiter. He smiled. He had a wonderful feeling that he had finally won through against what had seemed to be insuperable odds.
"That's it!" said Zaphod, "I got it. I told the computer to send us to the nearest place to eat, that's exactly what it did. Give or take five hundred and seventy-six thousand million years, we never moved. Neat."
They all agreed this was very neat.
"But who," said Zaphod, "is the cat on the phone?"
"Whatever happened to Marvin?" said Trillian.
Zaphod clapped his hands to his heads.
"The Paranoid Android! I left him moping about on Frogstar B."
"When was this?"
"Well, er, five hundred and seventy-six thousand million years ago I suppose," said Zaphod, "Hey, er, hand me the rap-rod, Plate Captain."
The little waiter's eyebrows wandered about his forehead in confusion.
"I beg your pardon, sir?" he said.
"The phone, waiter," said Zaphod, grabbing it off him. "Shee, you guys are so unhip it's a wonder your bums don't fall off."
"Indeed, sir."
"Hey, Marvin, is that you?" said Zaphod into the phone, "How you doing, kid?" There was a long pause before a thin low voice came up the line.
"I think you ought to know I'm feeling very depressed," it said.
Zaphod cupped his hands over the phone.
"It's Marvin," he said.
"Hey, Marvin," he said into the phone again, "we're having a great time. Food, wine, a little personal abuse and the Universe going foom. Where can we find you?"
Again the pause.
"You don't have to pretend to be interested in me you know," said Marvin at last, "I know perfectly well I'm only a menial robot."
"OK, OK," said Zaphod, "but where are you?"
"`Reverse primary thrust, Marvin,' that's what they say to me, `open airlock number three, Marvin. Marvin, can you pick up that piece of paper?' Can I pick up that piece of paper! Here I am, brain the size of a planet and they ask me to ..."
"Yeah, yeah," sympathized Zaphod hardly at all.
"But I'm quite used to being humiliated," droned Marvin, "I can even go and stick my head in a bucket of water if you like. Would you like me to go and stick my head in a bucket of water? I've got one ready. Wait a minute."
"Er, hey, Marvin ..." interrupted Zaphod, but it was too late. Sad little clunks and gurgles came up the line.
"What's he saying?" asked Trillian.
"Nothing," said Zaphod, "he just phoned up to wash his head at us."
"There," said Marvin, coming back on the line and bubbling a bit, "I hope that gave satisfaction ..."
"Yeah, yeah," said Zaphod, "now will you please tell us where you are?"
"I'm in the car park," said Marvin.
"The car park?" said Zaphod, "what are you doing there?"
"Parking cars, what else does one do in a car park?"
"OK, hang in there, we'll be right down."
In one movement Zaphod leapt to his feet, threw down the phone and wrote "Hotblack Desiato" on the bill.
"Come on guys," he said, "Marvin's in the car park. Let's get on down." "What's he doing in the car park?" asked Arthur.
"Parking cars, what else? Dum dum."
"But what about the End of the Universe? We'll miss the big moment."
"I've seen it. It's rubbish," said Zaphod, "nothing but a gnab gib."
"A what?"
"Opposite of a big bang. Come on, let's get zappy."
Few of the other diners paid them any attention as they weaved their way through the Restaurant to the exit. Their eyes were riveted on the horror of the skies.
"An interesting effect to watch for," Max was telling them, "is in the upper left-hand quadrant of the sky, where if you look very carefully you can see the star system Hastromil boiling away into the ultra-violet. Anyone here from Hastromil?"
There were one or two slightly hesitant cheers from somewhere at the back.
"Well," said Max beaming cheerfully at them, "it's too late to worry about whether you left the gas on now."
Section 17
The main reception foyer was almost empty but Ford nevertheless weaved his way through it.
Zaphod grasped him firmly by the arm and manoeuvred him into a cubicle standing to one side of the entrance hall.
"What are you doing to him?" asked Arthur.
"Sobering him up," said Zaphod and pushed a coin into a slot. Lights flashed, gases swirled.
"Hi," said Ford stepping out a moment later, "where are we going?"
"Down to the car park, come on."
"What about the personnel Time Teleports?" said Ford, "Get us straight back to the Heart of Gold."
"Yeah, but I've cooled on that ship. Zarniwoop can have it. I don't want to play his games. Let's see what we can find."
A Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Happy Vertical People Transporter took them down deep into the substrata beneath the Restaurant. They were glad to see it had been vandalized and didn't try to make them happy as well as take them down. At the bottom of the shaft the lift doors opened and a blast of cold stale air hit them.
The first thing they saw on leaving the lift was a long concrete wall with over fifty doors in it offering lavatory facilities for all of fifty major lifeforms. Nevertheless, like every car park in the Galaxy throughout the entire history of car parks, this car park smelt predominantly of impatience.
They turned a corner and found themselves on a moving catwalk that traversed a vast cavernous space that stretched off into the dim distance.
It was divided off into bays each of which contained a space ship belonging to one of the diners upstairs, some smallish and utilitarian mass production models, others vast shining limoships, the playthings of the very rich.
Zaphod's eyes sparkled with something that may or may not have been avarice as he passed over them. In fact it's best to be clear on this point - avarice is definitely what it was.
"There he is," said Trillian, "Marvin, down there."
They looked where she was pointing. Dimly they could see a small metal figure listlessly rubbing a small rag on one remote corner of a giant silver suncruiser.
At short intervals along the moving catwalk, wide transparent tubes led down to floor level. Zaphod stepped off the catwalk into one and floated gently downwards. The others followed. Thinking back to this later, Arthur Dent thought it was the single most enjoyable experience of his travels in the Galaxy.
"Hey, Marvin," said Zaphod striding over towards to him, "Hey, kid, are we pleased to see you."
Marvin turned, and in so far as it is possible for a totally inert metal face to look reproachfully, this is what it did.
"No you're not," he said, "no one ever is."
"Suit yourself," said Zaphod and turned away to ogle the ships. Ford went with him.
Only Trillian and Arthur actually went up to Marvin.
"No, really we are," said Trillian and patted him in a way that he disliked intensely, "hanging around waiting for us all this time."
"Five hundred and seventy-six thousand million, three thousand five hundred and seventy-nine years," said Marvin, "I counted them."
"Well, here we are now," said Trillian, felling - quite correctly in Marvin's view - that it was a slightly foolish thing to say.
"The first ten million years were the worst," said Marvin, "and the second ten million years, they were the worst too. The third million years I didn't enjoy at all. After that I went into a bit of decline."
He paused just long enough to make them feel they ought to say something, and then interrupted.
"It's the people you meet in this job that really get you down," he said and paused again.
Trillian cleared her throat.
"Is that ..."
"The best conversation I had was over forty million years ago," continued Marvin.
Again the pause.
"Oh d ..."
"And that was with a coffee machine."
He waited.
"That's a ..."
"You don't like talking to me do you?" said Marvin in a low desolate tone.
Trillian talked to Arthur instead.
Further down the chamber Ford Prefect had found something of which he very much liked the look, several such things in fact.
"Zaphod," he said in a quiet voice, "just look at some of these little star trolleys ..."
Zaphod looked and liked.
The craft they were looking at was in fact pretty small but extraordinary, and very much a rich kid's toy. It was not much to look at. It resembled nothing so much as a paper dart about twenty feet long made of thin but tough metal foil. At the rear end was a small horizontal two-man cockpit. It had a tiny charm- drive engine, which was not capable of moving it at any great speed. The thing it did have, however, was a heat-sink.
The heat-sink had a mass of some two thousand billion tons and was contained within a black hole mounted in an electromagnetic field situated half-way along the length of the ship, and this heat-sink enabled the craft to be manoeuvred to within a few miles of a yellow sun, there to catch and ride the solar flares that burst out from its surface.
Flare-riding is one of the most exotic and exhilarating sports in existence, and those who can dare and afford it are amongst the most lionized men in the Galaxy. It is also of course stupefyingly dangerous - those who don't die riding invariably die of sexual exhaustion at one of the Daedalus Club's Apres- Flare parties.