Yes... chapter two. Wow… Chapter three is already nagging at me to write it. No:kicks plotbunny away: I shall resist! Swearing in this chapter, mainly because I find it funny, oh, and this random thing that everyone seems to put at the top of their fanfics:
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters. They're too awesome; no way could I create them… :sobs:
Chapter 2
In which the main characters attempt to work out where the hell they are, and get into an argument with a ventilation system.
"Zaphod…" groaned Ford. "You forgot to set the controls on the teleportation system. Again."
Trillian swayed slowly to her feet, leaning at a 45° angle and trying not to be very very angry indeed with Zaphod. She counted to ten, and was still very angry at him. She then attempted to count to twenty, and promptly collapsed as her brain proved unable to cope with the combined effects of unexpected matter transference halfway across the galaxy, the most basic maths in existence, extreme irritation at the two-headed maniac who had just transported them the aforementioned distance through hyperspace, and standing up. She closed her eyes and resumed counting.
Arthur opened his eyes to discover that the world they had arrived at seemed to be almost wholly composed of a particularly violent shade of the colour purple. There was also rather a lot of shouting going on somewhere, which he decided to ignore for now, for the simple reason that when your head feels like someone has just attempted to play rugby with it, a thorough and informed exploration of your immediate environment is hardly likely to be top of your list of priorities.
As Arthur focused more closely on the particularly violent shade of purple, he realised that the reason why the whole world appeared to be a uniform hue of mauve was that he was lying on the floor with his face pressed into the linoleum. Wait… he thought. Linoleum? But linoleum indeed it was, cool, slightly curled at the edges, and the sort of colour that sends interior designers into apoplectic fits. "Ford…" he groaned. "Where the hell are we?"
Ford, who was leaning against a bizarrely curved control panel a few metres away and pressing buttons on the Guide, looked up. "Well…" he began, looked swiftly back down again at an electronic bleep from his device, swore loudly, pressed a few more buttons, thumped the side of the screen in an effort to make it work, and finally threw the whole thing across the room. "Well…" he repeated.
"Yes?" asked Arthur, eager to get to the point.
"When I checked the Guide, it said we were in the second branch of the star system Gabhimilious Minor at the top left hand corner of the galaxy, and that the local lobster was excellent. However, when I programmed in our current surroundings—" Here he broke off to wave a hand vaguely about the room. "— it replicated the article about the lobster, and told me that the best course of action would be to think happy thoughts, and not bode too much on the impending destruction of all sentient lifeforms. Then I got an error message."
"Impending destruction" mused Arthur. "That doesn't sound good".
"Nah, it's just the Guide malfunctioning again. Bloody book."
"Think they have any tea around here?"
In the opposite corner, an argument between Trillian and Zaphod had been raging for the past quarter of an hour. It had started with Trillian berating her erstwhile travelling companion for landing them on a ship that seemed to consist solely of one long stretch of purple, and continued through various interesting subjects such as Zaphod's attitude to responsibility as a whole, how he'd become President of the Galaxy in the first place, an comprehensive list of reasons as to why he was completely unsuited for the role, and a final invitation to explain himself, fully, inclusively, and in words of less than one syllable. Zaphod was now in the middle of a spirited defence of his motives, principles, and general drinking habits, which was an impressively wide range of sub-topics all in itself.
"Yes, but," interrupted Trillian halfway through a lecture on the relevance of the Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster to everyday life and ethics, which she suspected Zaphod was quoting straight from the Guide, "Where the hell are we? "
"Nowhere with any tea available, I can tell you that," answered Arthur, emerging from the one of the darker recesses of the room.
"It seems to be some sort of control room," said Ford, a little more helpfully. "Like the bridge on the Heart of Gold, only the screens aren't showing anything but weird green symbols. We found a speaker too, but the Babel fish can't translate whatever's coming out of it. It sounds like a chicken trying to cough up rocks".
"Great" said Trillian, slumping glumly to the ground. "Now we're really screwed".
"Wait!" yelled Arthur, who had moved off again on his never-ending quest for tea. I've found something else!" Trillian remained where she was, stabbing moodily at the buttons of the Guide. "Look! Ford, what is it?"
"Uh…" Ford sounded less than enthused. "It appears to be a ventilation system".
There was a whir, a click and a metallic hum. The sound like a chicken trying to cough up rocks ceased, and was replaced by a deep, robotic voice. "I am a ventilation system". Arthur gasped. Ford sighed. Trillian got up and wandered over. Zaphod remained where he was: standing on the other side of the room repeatedly beating his left head against the wall.
"Er…" said Ford, and then said it again, for want of anything else to say. "Er… right". The room fell silent.
"Ford…" whispered Arthur. "Did that ventilation system just speak to us?"
"I think so…"
"Of course it did" snapped Trillian. "I heard it!"
"The Earth woman is right," boomed the ventilation system.
Arthur passed out from sheer surprise. "Oh, brilliant," muttered Ford sarcastically, and attempted to address the ventilation system. "Where are we?"
"Well," it replied, "That all depends on whether you mean 'Where are we?' in the sense of occupying a particular location on the spatial plane, or whether you mean 'Where are we?' in the sense of expressing a desire to understand your purpose in the universe and your associated place within the social structures of—"
"SHUT UP!" The ventilation system fell silent again.
"Of all the possible ventilation systems we could have got stuck in a completely unidentifiable purple ship with a faulty copy of the Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy and a speaker playing a sound so bizarre that even the Babel fish can't translate it as anything other than a chicken trying to cough up rocks with, we have to get a philosophical one". Ford kicked the wall in frustration and turned back to the aforementioned device for a second try at rational conversation.
"Just tell me where the hell this ship is! And why it's so purple…"
"Well, that all depends on how you choose to define the term 'purple', in the existential sense rather than the…"
Ford kicked it again and gave up.
"So," said Trillian, a few hours later. "Anyone come up with any bright ideas about getting the hell out of here yet?" She looked round. Ford and Zaphod were engaged in an intense staring competition, which appeared to have been going on for the past half hour. Arthur was slumped against Ford's shoulder, dead to the world, and Marvin lay by the undecipherable monitor, counting every single particle of dust spinning lazily through the air of the room. He had performed this exercise three times already, and he'd only started it half a nanosecond ago. Trillian sighed heavily, decided that Arthur had the right idea, and, leaning against Zaphod, prepared to go to sleep. It was at this moment that the chicken-coughing-up-rocks sound ceased again, and an instantly translated, but otherwise totally alien voice billowed out of the speakers.
"Good evening, this is Captain Jeptzain Hooruly of the Imarwanien Official Scout Force. I have just received information that we have four intruders aboard our ship". He paused. "Sorry, make that four intruders and a suicidally depressed robot. Anyway, as I speak a small team of our best-trained destruction staff are making their way to them, and they should be dispatched with within minutes". Another pause, as Trillian listened, Arthur slumbered, and Ford and Zaphod continued to stare unblinkingly, giving no indication that they'd heard anything at all. A sudden burst of pop music exploded from the speakers, and an almost offensively cheerful jingle apparently promoting 'A better lifestyle on Verjoglen Beta' played for a couple of seconds, before the Captain concluded "Have a nice day!"
There was a loud thump at the wall that Zaphod was slouching against, and the spell broke. Everyone except Arthur jumped to their feet, screaming an interesting range of shocked expletives.
"Shit!"
"Zarking—"
"Bloody hell!"
"Mgfumphwumph?"
"Arthur, wake up!"
"Whuh?"
"There appear," said Ford, with an air of great calm, "to be a bunch of unknown and potentially lethal maniacs, with weaponry heavy enough to buckle the wall-" here he ducked as a large portion of purple metal caved in towards him "-and intent to kill us about to enter this room in less than five seconds, and we need to get out of the way! "
"Oh," muttered Arthur. "Well, business as usual then," and promptly went back to sleep, waking again a second later to scream "WHAT?!?"
"Exactly," said Ford grimly. "Now, hide!" He shoved Arthur behind the large monitor, looked around for another hiding place, selected a flimsy section of walling as having potential, ripped it off, and crammed himself into the cramped hollow behind it, holding the panel in front of him as close to the wall as possible. These manoeuvres took him precisely three seconds, Ford being no stranger to speedy concealment in a risky situation.
Behind the monitor, Zaphod swore, Arthur prayed, and Trillian held her breath. Inside the wall cavity, Ford closed his eyes and vowed never to get on a ship with his cousin again. Dust fell. Alien weaponry thumped. And then came a final, ear-splitting crash.
:kicks third chapter plotbunny repeatedly: No! Go away! Ahem… I'm trying to write this in the style of Douglas Adams. Am I doing well? Reviewers will be loved; criticism is welcomed. Just be polite, or no cookies.
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