THE BOOK:
Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think artificial intelligence is way out of their league. However, unknown to them, artificial intelligence had been invented twenty years ago, and two particular intelligences had both tried to kill a girl in the last four hours. At one moment, when she was in space, one of them had hold of her wrist, the other, her leg, and three others were attatched to the one who had her leg. Suddenly, the earth exploded and all six beings were sent into space. The girl might have died, had not one of them touched a blurry object, which, on a probability of two to the power of two-hundred and seventy-six thousand, seven-hundred and nine against, happened to be a man in a bathrobe and an intergalactic hitchhiker catching a ride on a Vogon ship. The girl passed out, leaving the two AIs to fight. However, before one of them could turn the other into miscellaneous parts, they heard voices.
FEMALE VOICE:
Get down! I hear someone!
FORD PREFECT:
I bought some peanuts.
ARTHUR DENT:
What?!
FORD PREFECT:
If you've never been through a matter transference beam before, you've probably lost some salt and protein. The beer you had should've cushioned your system a bit. How are you feeling?
ARTHUR DENT:
Like a military academy - bits of me keep on passing out. If I asked you where the hell we were, would I regret it?
FORD PREFECT:
We're safe.
ARTHUR DENT:
Oh good…
FORD PREFECT:
We're in a small galley cabin in one of the spaceships of the Vogon constructor fleet.
ARTHUR DENT:
Ah. This is obviously some strange usage of the word "safe" that I wasn't previously aware of.
At this point, the girl (whose name was Chell) and the other AI's woke up.
FORD PREFECT:
I'll have a look for the light.
ARTHUR DENT:
All right. …. How did we get here?
FORD PREFECT:
We hitched a lift.
ARTHUR DENT:
Excuse me.? Are you trying to tell me that we just stuck out our thumbs and some bug-eyed monster stuck his head out and said, "Hi fellows, hop right in, I can take you as far as the Basingstoke roundabout."?
FORD PREFECT:
Well, the thumb's an electronic sub-ether device, the roundabout's at Barnard's star, six light years away, but otherwise, that's more or less right.
ARTHUR DENT:
And the bug-eyed monster?
FORD PREFECT:
Is green, yes.
ARTHUR DENT:
Fine. When can I go home?
FORD PREFECT:
You can't. Ah! - I've found the light.
[Light comes on]
ARTHUR DENT:
Good grief! Is this really the interior of a flying saucer?
FORD PREFECT:
It certainly is. What do you think?
CHILDISH MALE VOICE:
OH MY GOSH, WE'RE IN SPACE!
ARTHUR DENT:
WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!
FORD PREFECT:
I DON'T KNOW! WHY DON'T WE FIND OUT?!
ARTHUR DENT:
HOW WILL YELLING HELP THIS SITUATION?!
FORD PREFECT:
YOU TELL ME! YOU STARTED IT!
There was a terrible ghastly silence.
There was a terrible ghastly noise.
There was a terrible ghastly silence.
Finally, they came out of where they were hiding.
There was a woman about seven feet tall. Her white hair was amazingly and gorgeously wavy and it came down to her waist. It looked strangely like tentacles or wires. She wore a very long white dress to her ankles with gold straps that looped around her arms, just below her pits. Her skin was completely white. The strangest thing about her was her eyes- they were a shocking yellow color, with no pupils.
There was a man about six feet tall, with glasses framing his electric blue, pupil-less eyes. His white hair was slightly messy, parting slightly off center. He looked innocent, and if you were into that sort of thing, cute. His chest held a blue light, which seemed like it could look around.
There was another man, maybe five foot six, with lime green eyes. He had the same light in his chest, but green, with a watchful black "pupil". He had a rather square, reasonably attractive face and brown hair that flipped up in front. He was, for whatever reason, smiling like an idiot, probably because he was one.
A third man, also 5'6", had hot pink eyes framed by glasses. He looked very intellectual, yet a bit quirky. His black hair was perfectly neat- every single strand was accounted for. He wore a neat pink tie, framed by a neat light pink collar attached to a neat light pink shirt. His chest held a pink light, designed in a sunburst pattern.
Finally, there was a little boy, with very messy, very short golden hair, which matched his wide, golden eyes. He was, for whatever reason, very excited to be there. He had a cute little button nose. His chest light had the same sunburst pattern as the neat man in pink, but golden.
And if you're reading this, you know what Chell looks like.
FORD PREFECT:
Umm… this is awkward… um… hi.
ARTHUR DENT:
Chell?
FORD PREFECT:
You know her?
ARTHUR DENT:
Yes. I dated her once in high school. She was cuter back then. But that explains virtually nothing!
GLaDOS:
Actually, that explains a lot.
ARTHUR DENT:
For instance, how the hell did she get here?
FORD PREFECT:
The same way we got here, assumedly.
ARTHUR DENT:
Alright, so how did we get here?
FORD PREFECT:
I can't explain it, look it up in the book.
ARTHUR DENT:
What is it?
FORD PREFECT:
'The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy'. It's a sort of electronic book - it'll tell you everything you want to know - that's its job.
ARTHUR DENT:
I like the cover: "Don't panic". It's the first helpful or intelligible thing anybody's said to me all day!
CHELL:
You said it, brother.
GLaDOS AND WHEATLEY:
You can talk?
CHELL:
Of course I can talk. I have a degree in physics, I'm not a moron. Unlike some people I could mention.
(Everyone's gaze turns towards Wheatley)
WHEATLEY:
What?
FORD PREFECT:
Anyway, press this button and the screen will give you the index. You've got several million entries so fast-wind through the index to 'E'… There you are: Electronic Sub-Ether Device. Enter that code on the tabulator and read what it says.
[With a medley of bleeps and bloops, the Guide speaks. Everyone crowds around the tiny-winy-itty-bitty screen]
THE BOOK:
'Electronic Sub-Ether Device'.
This device thumbs in on spaceships, sending a signal that said spaceship can either deny or accept access to a sub particalizer, turning the user of the electronic sub-ether device into a billion specks of dust moving at speeds faster than the speed of light. There may, studies theorize, be a connection to this and the existence of an infinite improbability drive, but the chances are highly, highly improbable.
ARTHUR DENT:
How did we get a lift from these Bogon things then? And how did they get here?
FORD PREFECT:
They're vogons. The point is it's out of date now! I'm doing the field research for the new revised edition of the Guide. So, for instance, I will have to include a revision pointing out that since the Vogons have made so much money being professionally unpleasant, they can now afford to employ Dentrassi cooks. Which gives us a rather useful little loophole.
ARTHUR DENT:
Who are the Dentrassi?
FORD PREFECT:
The best cooks and the best drink mixers and they don't give a wet slap about anything else. And they will always help hitch-hikers on board, partly because they like the company, but mostly because it annoys the Vogons. Which is exactly the sort of thing you need to know if you're an impoverished Hitch-Hiker trying to see the marvels of the Galaxy for less than thirty Altairian dollars a day. And that's my job. Fun, isn't it?
SPACE CORE:
You mean you get to see… space?
FORD PREFECT:
Umm… yeah?
SPACE CORE:
SPAAAACE! (continues babbling about space)
ARTHUR DENT:
Okay then.
FORD PREFECT:
Unfortunately I got stuck on the Earth for rather longer than I intended. I came for a week and was stranded for fifteen years.
ARTHUR DENT:
Er, heh heh. Ford I don't know if this sounds like a silly question - but what are we doing here?
FORD PREFECT:
Well you know that! I rescued you from the Earth. All of you, apparently.
CHELL:
But what happened to the Earth?
FORD PREFECT:
It's been… disintegrated.
ARTHUR DENT:
Has it?
FORD PREFECT:
Yes. It just… boiled away into space.
GLaDOS:
Oh no! Wait a minute, I meant the other thing. "Hooray." Yes, that's it.
ARTHUR DENT:
Look, I'm a bit upset about that.
CHELL:
Hey, look on the bright side! No more fanfiction!
ARTHUR DENT:
Yes, I suppose there is that.
ARTHUR DENT:
So, what do I do?
FORD PREFECT:
You come along with me and enjoy yourself.
RICK:
So, like an adventure? Whoohoo!
FORD PREFECT:
You'll need to have this fish in your ear.
ARTHUR DENT:
I beg your pardon!
CHELL:
A what in my where?!
RICK:
That's what she said!
FACT:
Fact: fish is used several times and in several forms in the recipe for Black Forest Cake.
VOGON CAPTAIN:
[Alien gibberish]
ARTHUR DENT AND WHEATLEY:
What the devil's that!?
VOGON CAPTAIN:
[More alien gibberish]
FORD PREFECT:
Listen! It might be important.
VOGON CAPTAIN:
[Even more alien gibberish]
ARTHUR DENT:
What?
VOGON CAPTAIN:
[Yet more alien gibberish]
FORD PREFECT:
It's the Vogon Captain making an announcement on the PA.
VOGON CAPTAIN:
[Yet even more alien gibberish]
ARTHUR DENT:
But I can't speak Vogon!
VOGON CAPTAIN:
[Even more alien gibberish]
FORD PREFECT:
You don't need to! Just put the fish in your ear - c'mon, they're only little ones.
CHELL:
Fine, just give me the fish so I can't hear that awful noise.
VOGON CAPTAIN:
[Yet even more alien gibberish]
[With a slurping noise, the Babel fish slides into Arthur's ear, another in Chell's]
ARTHUR DENT:
Euuuuggh!
CHELL:
Oh, god, I was better off without the fish! It's worse now!
ALL ANDROIDS, IN THEIR OWN WAY, EXCITEDLY AND ANXIOUSLY:
What's he saying?
ARTHUR DENT:
They've got hitchikers… They're not welcome… he's gonna read us… poetry? He's cancelling leave. It sounds like they found us. Charming, these Vogons. I wish I had a daughter so I could forbid her to marry one.
CHELL:
You wouldn't need to, trust me.
FORD PREFECT:
You better be prepared for the jump into hyperspace; it's unpleasantly like being drunk.
ARTHUR DENT:
Well, what's so unpleasant about being drunk?
FORD PREFECT:
You ask a glass of water!
ARTHUR DENT:
Ford.
FORD PREFECT:
Yes?
ARTHUR DENT:
What's this fish doing in our ears?
FORD PREFECT:
Translating for you. Look under Babel Fish in the book.
[Whooshing noise]
ARTHUR DENT:
What's happening?
[Whooshing noise]
FORD PREFECT:
We're going into hyperspace.
[Whooshing noise]
SPACE CORE:
Space?
ARTHUR DENT:
Eeeuuuhhh! I… I'll never be cruel to a gin and tonic again.
[Chell barfs everywhere. Wheatley and Fact look like they would've if they weren't robots. GLaDOS barfs, having forgotten that she is a robot. As the whooshing noise increases, we hear under it a "tick-tick-tick-bing!"]
THE BOOK:
The Babel Fish is small, yellow, leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy absorbing all unconscious frequencies and then excreting, telepathically, a matrix formed from the conscious frequencies and nerve signals picked up from the speech centers of the brain. The practical upshot of which is, that if you stick one in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language. The speech you hear decodes the brainwave matrix. Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could evolve purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final clinching proof of the non-existence of God. The argument goes something like this:
"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
"But," said Man, "the Babel Fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It proves you exist and so therefore you don't. QED."
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that!" and promptly vanished in a puff of logic.
"Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore he proves that black is white and gets killed on the next zebra crossing.
Most leading theologians claim that this argument is a load of dingo's kidneys, but that didn't stop Oolong Clupeid making a small fortune when he used it as the central theme of his best-selling book 'Well, That About Wraps It Up For God'. Meanwhile, the poor Babel Fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different cultures and races, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.
FACT CORE:
Raseph, the semitic god of war and plague, had a gazelle growing out of his forehead.
WHEATLEY:
Understood all that perfectly, by the way.
ARTHUR DENT:
What an extraordinary book.
FORD PREFECT:
Want to help me write the new edition?
ARTHUR DENT:
No. I want to go back to Earth again I'm afraid - or its nearest equivalent.
RICK:
Wuss.
FORD PREFECT:
You're turning down a hundred billion new worlds to explore.
RICK:
Now THAT'S more LIKE it!
ARTHUR DENT:
Did you get much useful material on Earth?
FORD PREFECT:
I was able to extend the entry, yes.
ARTHUR DENT:
Well let's see what it says in this edition then.
FORD PREFECT:
Okay.
ARTHUR DENT:
Let's see…E…Earth. Tap out the code.
[He taps buttons, and Guide gives a "bing!"]
ARTHUR DENT:
There's the page… wha - it doesn't seem to have an entry.
FORD PREFECT:
Yes it does, see, right at the bottom of the screen - just under 'Eccentric Gallumbits, the triple-breasted whore of Eroticon Six'.
ARTHUR DENT:
What there? …oh yes. "Harmless". Harmless? Is that all it's got to say?! One word! "Harmless"!? What the hell's that supposed to mean?
CHELL:
Harmless? Are you a lunatic?
FORD PREFECT:
Well there are a hundred billion stars in the galaxy and a limited amount of space in the book. And no one knew much about the Earth of course.
ARTHUR DENT:
Well I hope you've managed to rectify that a little.
CHELL:
Out of all the words, harmless?
FORD PREFECT:
Yes! I transmitted a new entry off to the editor… He had to trim it a bit, but it's still an improvement!
ARTHUR DENT:
What does it say now?
FORD PREFECT:
"Mostly Harmless".
ARTHUR DENT AND CHELL:
[Yells] "Mostly Harmless"?!
FORD PREFECT:
Well that's the way it is! We're on a different scale now.
GLaDOS:
That's actually a pretty good summary of human life, except I would put "Mostly Useless" or "Mostly Fat".
CHELL:
I deny the idea that Earth is harmless at all! I was shot several times in the leg, and I must have nearly died at least 50 times!
ARTHUR DENT:
Wow, what happened to you?
CHELL:
Ask them.
(Chell points towards GLaDOS and Wheatley)
GLaDOS:
Look, I'm sorry! Oh wait, no I'm not. It was for science.
WHEATLEY:
It's not like I was hooked up to the body of an oppressive, overpowering, evil AI or something! I mean really, you can't give lil' ol' Wheatley a break?
FORD PREFECT:
Fine then. who's coming with me, anyway?
ARTHUR DENT:
Okay Ford, I'm with you. I'm bloody well coming with you.
RICK:
WOO HOO!
FACT:
"Fact: Space does not exist."
SPACE:
Better buy a telescope. Wanna see me? Buy a telescope. Gonna be in space.
WHEATLEY:
I guess I'm in.
GLaDOS:
Why not waste a few years of my life being bored?
CHELL:
What she said.
ARTHUR DENT:
Okay then. Where are we now?
FORD PREFECT:
Not far from Barnard's Star - it's a beautiful place, and a sort of hyperspace juncture. You can get virtually anywhere from there.
[Footsteps approaching]
FORD PREFECT:
That is… assuming that we actually get there.
[Footsteps get nearer; door opens]
SPACE CORE:
Oh. Play it cool. Play it cool. Here come the space cops.
ARTHUR DENT:
What's that!?
FORD PREFECT:
Well…if we're lucky it's just the Vogons come to throw us into space.
ARTHUR DENT:
And if we're unlucky…?
FORD PREFECT:
If we're unlucky the Captain might want to read us some of his poetry first.
NARRATOR:
Vogon poetry is, of course, the third worst in the universe. The second worst is that of the Azgoths of Kria. During a recitation by their poet-master, Grunthos the Flatulent, of his poem 'Ode to a Small Lump Of Green Putty I Found In My Armpit One Midsummer Morning', four of his audience died of internal haemorrhaging, and the president of the Mid-Galactic Arts Nobbling Council survived by gnawing one of his own legs off. Grunthos was reported to have been "disappointed" by the poem's reception, and was about to embark on a reading of his twelve - book epic entitled 'My Favorite Bath-time Gurgles', when his own major intestine, in a desperate attempt to save humanity, leapt straight up through his neck, and throttled his brain. The very worst poetry of all perished along with its creator, Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings of Greenbridge, in the destruction of the planet Earth. Vogon Poetry is mild by comparison, and when the Vogon Captain began to read, it provoked this reaction from Ford Prefect:
FORD PREFECT:
[Screams]
THE BOOK:
And this from Arthur Dent:
ARTHUR DENT:
[Horrible screams]
THE BOOK:
And this from Chell:
CHELL:
[Whimpers]
VOGON CAPTAIN:
"Oh freddled gruntbuggly…"
SPACE CORE:
Space. Trial. Puttin' the system on trial. In space. Space system. On trial. Guilty. Of being in space! Going to space jail! Help me, space cops. Space cops, help. Space Court. For people in space. Judge space sun presiding. Bam. Guilty. Of being in space. I'm in space.
CHELL:
[Whimpers, a tiny bit louder]
ARTHUR DENT:
[Blood-curdling screams]
FORD PREFECT:
[Awful screams]
GLaDOS:
Whoa, Chell is whimpering? I need to borrow that book sometime.
VOGON CAPTAIN:
"…thy micturations are to me, as purdled gabbleblotchitson lurgid bee."
ARTHUR DENT:
[Ghastly screams]
FORD PREFECT:
[Suffering screams]
CHELL:
[Whimpers, a tiny bit more desperate]
VOGON CAPTAIN:
"Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes..."
ARTHUR DENT:
[Dreadful screams]
FORD PREFECT:
[ Agonised screams]
CHELL:
[Whimpers, a lot more pathetically]
VOGON CAPTAIN:
"And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles, for I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon, see if I don't!"
ARTHUR DENT:
[Terrible screams]
FORD PREFECT:
[Horrendous screams]
CHELL:
[screams]
GLaDOS:
I definitely need to borrow that book.
ARTHUR DENT:
Aghhh. Ahhhhh.
FORD PREFECT:
Ahhhh. Aghhhh.
CHELL:
Aghhh. Ahhhhh. That did NOT just happen.
VOGON CAPTAIN:
So, Earthlings, I present you with a simple choice. I was going to throw you straight out into the empty blackness of space to die horribly and slowly, but there is one way, one simple way, in which you may save yourselves. Now think very carefully… for you hold your very lives in your hands! Now choose: either die in the Vacuum of Space, or -
[Dramatic chord, then several not-so-dramatic chords]
VOGON CAPTAIN:
…tell me how good you thought my poem was.
GLaDOS:
[claps, hoots, whistles] YEAH, BABY! LOVED IT!
(Everyone but Space, who is saying something about space cops, and the Vogon Captian stares at GLaDOS angrily, especially Chell, Arthur, and Ford)
GLaDOS:
What?