The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (51 page)

“ … people, creatures, your fellow beings …”

Music swelled—again, it was immense music, immense chords. And behind the man, slowly, three tall pillars began slowly to emerge out of the immensely swirling mist.

“ … experienced, lived through or—more often—failed to live through. Think of that, my friends. And let us not forget—and in just a moment I shall be able to suggest a way that will help us always to remember—that before the Krikkit Wars, the Galaxy was that rare and wonderful thing, a happy Galaxy!”

The music was going bananas with immensity at this point.

“A happy Galaxy, my friends, as represented by the symbol of the Wikkit Gate!”

The three pillars stood out clearly now, three pillars topped with two crosspieces in a way that looked stupefyingly familiar to Arthur’s addled brain.

“The three pillars,” thundered the man, “the Steel Pillar, which represents the Strength and Power of the Galaxy!”

Searchlights seared out and danced crazy dances up and down the pillar on the left that was made of steel or something very like it. The music thumped and bellowed.

“The Plastic Pillar,” announced the man, “representing the forces of Science and Reason in the Galaxy!”

Other searchlights played exotically up and down the right-hand, transparent pillar creating dazzling patterns within it and a sudden inexplicable craving for ice cream in the stomach of Arthur Dent.

“And,” the thunderous voice continued, “the Wooden Pillar, representing …” and here his voice became just very slightly hoarse with wonderful sentiments, “the forces of Nature and Spirituality.”

The lights picked out the central pillar. The music moved bravely up into the realms of complete unspeakability.

“Between them supporting,” the voice rolled on, approaching its climax, “the Golden Bail of Prosperity and the Silver Bail of Peace!”

The whole structure was now flooded with dazzling lights, and the music had now, fortunately, gone far beyond the limits of the discernible. At the top of the three pillars the two brilliantly gleaming bails sat and dazzled. There seemed to be girls sitting on top of them, or maybe they were meant to be angels. Angels usually are represented as wearing more than that though.

Suddenly there was a dramatic hush in what was presumably meant to be the cosmos, and a darkening of the lights.

“There is not a world,” thrilled the man’s expert voice, “not a civilized world in the Galaxy where this symbol is not revered even today. Even in primitive worlds it persists in racial memories. This it was that the forces of Krikkit destroyed, and this it is that now locks their world away till the end of eternity!”

And with a flourish, the man produced in his hands a model of the Wikkit Gate. Scale was terribly hard to judge in this whole extraordinary spectacle, but the model looked as if it must have been about three feet high.

“Not the original Key, of course. That, as everyone knows, was destroyed, blasted into the ever whirling eddies in the space-time continuum
and lost forever. This is a remarkable replica, hand-tooled by skilled craftsmen, lovingly assembled using ancient craft secrets into a memento you will be proud to own, in memory of those who fell, and in tribute to the Galaxy—our Galaxy—which they died to defend.…”

Slartibartfast floated past again at this moment.

“Found it,” he said, “we can lose all this rubbish. Just don’t nod, that’s all.”

“Now, let us bow our heads in payment,” intoned the voice, and then said it again, much faster and backward.

Lights came and went, the pillars disappeared, the man gabbled himself backward into nothing, the Universe snappily reassembled itself around them.

“You get the gist?” said Slartibartfast.

“I’m astonished,” said Arthur, “and bewildered.”

“I was asleep,” said Ford, who floated into view at this point. “Did I miss anything?”

They found themselves once again teetering rather rapidly on the edge of an agonizingly high cliff. The wind whipped out from their faces and across a bay on which the remains of one of the greatest and most powerful space battle fleets ever assembled in the Galaxy were briskly burning themselves back into existence. The sky was a sullen pink, darkening, via a rather curious color, to blue and upward to black. Smoke billowed down out of it at an incredible lick.

Events were now passing back by them almost too quickly to be distinguished, and when, a short while later, a huge star battleship rushed away from them as if they’d said “Boo,” they only just recognized it as the point at which they had come in.

But now things were too rapid, a videotactile blur that brushed and jiggled them through centuries of Galactic history, turning, twisting, flickering. The sound was a mere thin trill.

Periodically throughout the thickening jumble of events they sensed appalling catastrophes, deep horrors, cataclysmic shocks, and these were always associated with certain recurring images, the only images which ever stood out clearly from the avalanche of tumbling history: a Wikkit Gate, a small, hard red ball, and hard white robots, and also something less distinct, something dark and cloudy.

But there was also another sensation that rose clearly out of the trilling passage of time.

Just as a slow series of clicks when speeded up will lose the definition of
each individual click and gradually take on the quality of a sustained and rising tone, so a series of individual impressions here took on the quality of a sustained emotion—and yet not an emotion. If it was an emotion, it was a totally emotionless one. It was hatred, implacable hatred. It was cold, not like ice is cold, but like a wall is cold. It was impersonal, not like a randomly flung fist in a crowd is impersonal, but like a computer-issued parking summons is impersonal. And it was deadly, again, not like a bullet or a knife is deadly, but like a brick wall across an expressway is deadly.

And just as a rising tone will change in character and take on harmonics as it rises, so again this emotionless emotion seemed to rise to an unbearable if unheard scream and suddenly seemed to be a scream of guilt and failure.

And suddenly it stopped.

They were left standing on a quiet hilltop on a tranquil evening.

The sun was setting.

All around them softly undulating green countryside rolled off gently into the distance. Birds sang about what they thought of it all, and the general opinion seemed to be good. A little way off could be heard the sound of children playing, and a little farther away than the apparent source of that sound could be seen in the dimming evening light the outlines of a small town.

The town appeared to consist mostly of fairly low buildings made of white stone. The skyline was of gentle pleasing curves.

The sun had nearly set.

As if out of nowhere, music began. Slartibartfast tugged at a switch and it stopped.

A voice said, “This …” Slartibartfast tugged at a switch and it stopped.

“I will tell you about it,” he said quietly.

The place was peaceful. Arthur felt happy. Even Ford seemed cheerful. They walked a short way in the direction of the town, and the Informational Illusion of the grass was pleasant and springy under their feet, and the Informational Illusion of the flowers smelled sweet and fragrant. Only Slartibartfast seemed apprehensive and out of sorts.

He stopped and looked up.

It suddenly occurred to Arthur that coming as this did at the end, so to speak, or rather the beginning, of all the horror they had just blurrily experienced, something nasty must be about to happen. He was distressed
to think that something nasty could happen to somewhere as idyllic as this. He too glanced up. There was nothing in the sky.

“They’re not about to attack here, are they?” he said. He realized that this was merely a recording he was walking through, but he still felt alarmed.

“Nothing is about to attack here,” said Slartibartfast in a voice that unexpectedly trembled with emotion, “this is where it all starts. This is the place itself. This is Krikkit.”

He stared up into the sky.

The sky, from one horizon to another, from east to west, from north to south, was utterly and completely black.

S
tomp stomp.

Whirrr.

“Pleased to be of service.”

“Shut up.”

“Thank you.”

Stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp.

Whirrr.

“Thank you for making a simple door very happy.”

“Hope your diodes rot.”

“Thank you. Have a nice day.”

Stomp stomp stomp stomp.

Whirrr.

“It is my pleasure to open for you …”

“Zark off.”

“ … and my satisfaction to close again with the knowledge of a job well done.”

“I said zark off.”

“Thank you for listening to this message.”

Stomp stomp stomp stomp.

“Whop.”

Zaphod stopped stomping. He had been stomping around the
Heart of Gold
for days, and so far no door had said “whop” to him. He was fairly certain that no door had said “whop” to him now. It was not the sort of thing doors said. Too concise. Furthermore, there were not enough doors. It sounded as if a hundred thousand people had said “whop,” which puzzled him because he was the only person on the ship.

It was dark. Most of the ship’s nonessential systems were closed down. It was drifting idly in a remote area of the Galaxy, deep in the inky blackness of space. So which particular hundred thousand people would turn up at this point and say a totally unexpected “whop”?

He looked about him, up the corridor and down the corridor. It was all in deep shadow. There were just the very dim pinkish outlines to the doors that glowed in the dark and pulsed whenever they spoke though he had tried every way he could think of to stop them.

The lights were off so that his heads could avoid looking at each other because neither of them was currently a particularly engaging sight, nor had they been since he had made the error of looking into his soul.

It had indeed been an error.

It had been late one night—of course.

It had been a difficult day—of course.

There had been soulful music playing on the ship’s sound system—of course.

And he had, of course, been slightly drunk.

In other words, all the usual conditions that bring on a bout of soul-searching had applied, but it had, nevertheless, clearly been an error.

Standing now, silent and alone in the dark corridor, he remembered the moment and shivered. His one head looked one way and his other the other and each decided that the other way was the way to go.

He listened but could hear nothing.

All there had been was the “whop.”

It seemed an awfully long way to bring an awfully large number of people just to say one word.

He started nervously to edge his way in the direction of the bridge. There at least he would feel in control. He stopped again. The way he was feeling he didn’t think he was an awfully good person to be in control.

The first shock of that moment, thinking back, had been discovering that he actually had a soul.

In fact he’d always more or less assumed that he had one as he had a full complement of everything else, and indeed two of some things, but suddenly actually to encounter the thing lurking there deep within him had given him a severe jolt.

And then to discover (this was the second shock) that it wasn’t the totally wonderful object that he felt a man in his position had a natural right to expect had jolted him again.

Then he had thought about what his position actually was and the renewed shock had nearly made him spill his drink. He drained it quickly before anything serious happened to it. He then had another quick one to follow the first one down and check that it was all right.

“Freedom,” he said aloud.

Trillian came onto the bridge at that point and said several enthusiastic things on the subject of freedom.

“I can’t cope with it,” he said darkly, and sent a third drink down to see why the second hadn’t yet reported on the condition of the first. He
looked uncertainly at both of her and preferred the one on the right.

He poured a drink down his other throat with the plan that it would head the previous one off at the pass, join forces with it, and together they would get the second to pull itself together. Then all three would go off in search of the first, give it a good talking to.

He felt uncertain as to whether the fourth drink had understood all that so he sent down a fifth to explain the plan more fully and a sixth for moral support.

“You’re drinking too much,” said Trillian.

His heads collided trying to sort out the four of her he could now see into a whole person. He gave up and looked at the navigation screen and was astonished to see a quite phenomenal number of stars.

“Excitement and adventure and really wild things,” he muttered.

“Look,” she said in a sympathetic tone of voice, and sat down near him, “it’s quite understandable that you’re going to feel a little aimless for a bit.”

He boggled at her. He had never seen anyone sit on their own lap before.

“Wow,” he said. He had another drink.

“You’ve finished the mission you’ve been on for years.”

“I haven’t been on it. I’ve tried to avoid being on it.”

“You’ve still finished it.”

He grunted. There seemed to be a terrific party going on in his stomach.

“I think it finished me,” he said. “Here I am, Zaphod Beeblebrox, I can go anywhere, do anything. I have the greatest ship in the known sky, a girl with whom things seem to be working out pretty well.…”

“Are they?”

“As far as I can tell. I’m not an expert in personal relationships.…”

Trillian raised her eyebrows.

“I am,” he added, “one hell of a guy, I can do anything I want only I just don’t have the faintest idea what.”

He paused.

“One thing,” he further added, “has suddenly ceased to lead to another,” in contradiction of which he had another drink and slid gracelessly off his chair.

While he slept it off, Trillian did a little research in the ship’s copy of
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
It had some advice to offer on drunkenness.