A/N: Sorry for the delay in getting round to a new story - real life got horribly in the way! (The pretzels are largely because I've been craving them today and they don't seem to be making them any more :( ) I lay no claim to anything you recognise, it is the work of DNA, I just like it too much to let it be...

Chapter 1 - Chocolate pretzels

Arthur and Ford materialised in the dark, somewhere on board something that hummed and smelt like a spaceship. Ford's arm was still tightly locked around Arthur's, and their hands were all tangled together around Ford's electronic thumb. Arthur groaned,

'I hate teleporting,' he muttered. He coughed. The coughing didn't actually help very much at all with anything physical. His discomfort was due to a horribly fuzzy, light feeling in his head and an vague heaviness in his stomach and limbs. But coughing was all he could do at the moment, so as a last resort it would have to do.

Next to him, Ford took a very deep breath, as if trying to reflate himself after being sent through the sub-ether. He unwound his fingers from Arthur's, then wrapped them back around the free end of the little black stick and tugged. Arthur failed to let go, so Ford took hold of his fingers and prised them off, one by one. Arthur whimpered as Ford removed his last finger and unwound his arm from the crook of his elbow – clearly he had been psychologically depending on that contact.

'Ford, why is it always dark when we use that thing to arrive anywhere? Where are we anyway?' croaked Arthur. Ford did not answer for a second – he was too busy stuffing the thumb safely back into his satchel and rummaging around for something else, at last he pulled a packet of some sort out of the bag and said,

'Mmm – what?' Arthur sighed,

'Where are we, Ford?'

'In the hold, I think. I 'm pretty sure it was an automated response I got, so we're probably stuck here till we get wherever we're going...Arthur, are you wet?'

Arthur stopped hugging his elbows and tugged his mind round to think about his body – which, up to this point, he had been making a concerted effort not to do. He felt a cold sort of seepage around his posterior, which he was sure (and very relieved to be so sure) was too cold to have come from inside his dressing gown. It must, therefore, be coming from outside. He sniffed, hoping for clues to the wetness, but his addled senses refused to do any work just yet. He tentatively moved his hand down beside him and prodded at whatever it was he was sitting on,

'Eeugh!' he said, and tried to jump up. Unfortunately, his body wasn't quite ready for complex things, like standing, and his legs gave way and he fell onto Ford, or rather onto his satchel, which was still on his lap. Ford said,

'Ow!' grabbed hold of his dressing gown and heaved him back onto the damp thing on which they sat. He checked that Arthur wasn't about to fall on him again, and then wiped his hands on Arthur's sleeve. The bit he had grabbed had obviously been the bit Arthur usually used for sitting on, and Arthur felt his brain go light again as that thought trundled past it. Ford was rummaging in his bag again, and with a little 'Ahah!' of triumph, he flicked on a torch. The beam fell on Arthur's resigned face. He was looking bedraggled in the way that only a man who has just been whooshed through the sub-ether in his dressing gown, without even a single pint of beer to cushion his system, then deposited on something wet, in the dark, can. Ford almost laughed, then decided it might be more politic not to, and proffered the packet he had found in his bag. Arthur looked doubtfully at the brown shapes in the bag, then up at Ford, who explained cheerfully,

'Chocolate-covered pretzels...at least, I think they are. It's no use looking at me like that – they're all I've got. I wasn't actually in a position to pick up the chef's choice. They're full of salt and carbohydrate and there's enough protein to liven you up a bit.' Arthur still looked doubtful and sniffed at the bag. His nose still wasn't doing its job, so he decided that Ford would just have to be trusted,

'It sounds revolting,' he said, and brought the single chocolatey twist up close to his nose, hoping that the proximity might overcome his nasal reluctance. There was still no joy on this front however, and Arthur just hoped that the failing would carry over to his sense of taste and render any unpleasantness unnoticeable. He popped it in his mouth and chewed. No, either his taste was unaffected by his lack of nasal aptitude, or the sense of smell had come back...actually, it didn't taste too bad at all. A little odd, but not nasty...and yes, his sense of smell must have come back, for as he sniffed a fourth time, the quality of the air around him became very apparent.

The whole room smelt dank...slimy? Brackish maybe...like a bucket you leave in your garden, full of vegetable peelings, that gets filled with rainwater and that you are then too cowardly to touch, so that it grows a coating of bubbly green slime in the sunshine and doesn't get emptied until you trip over it one day and are subsequently forced to spend several hours in the shower. Well...maybe not quite that bad, but definitely getting there.

Ford was still watching him intently, forcing more of the pretzels upon him, checking to see when he lost his greenish tinge so that he could stop looking after him. The torchlight hurt Arthur's sensitised eyes, and he pushed it down. They were sat on something stripy that was definitely the source of the smell. Feeling a little more generally stable, Arthur pushed himself back off it and crouched next to Ford, still not trusting himself to stand up. Ford seemed utterly unconcerned at the wetness assailing his bottom, and was now munching his way through the remainder of the pretzels, his torch between his legs, shining suggestively down onto the wet thing beneath him.

There was a sound like the gurgle of a water-bed that needs the air getting out of it, and someone spoke, their voice light and bubbly, and thoroughly unexpected,

'Hello?!' it said inquisitively. Arthur turned his head frantically to see where the voice had come from. When no body was apparent, he grabbed Ford's knee and squeaked,

'Did you hear that?!' Ford picked at his back teeth with a finger and said nonchalantly,

'I think so...' Though Arthur had the distinct impression that Ford's shaking knee was closer to displaying his true reaction to the disembodied greeting than was his tone of voice. He was just wondering whether he should mention this, when the voice spoke once more,

'Hello?' it asked again.

Arthur did the only sensible thing: he passed out.

Where have Ford and Arthur materialised? Why is it so wet and smelly? Who or what is the owner of the mysterious voice? And given the condition of the floor, will Arthur come round in a state fit to be seen, or will he drown in foul smelling wetness before he gets to prove that Ford isn't as cool about this as he looks? Reviews are sure to stop me doing what I ought to be doing and get me writing another chapter!