The explosion blew the lavatory's doors off and threw Arthur back. He landed on a pile of debris that had once been a very stylish set of tables and chairs. The tentacled creatures that had been chatting at the table over a cup of coffee went off squealing into the crowds.
Arthur coughed his way back to consciousness through a cloud of dust. His back hurt, but he had landed on the towel in his satchel, which had cushioned the blow. His main concern was Fenchurch.
The explosion had torn the front wall of the lavatory off, exposing the grimy tiled interior. Aliens ran out of the smoke-filled lavatory, trying to zip up their trousers or pull down their skirts. Arthur couldn't see anything inside. He ran into the smoke-filled room.
When he regained consciousness on the floor, Arthur wrapped his towel over his nose and mouth to keep from asphyxiating on the smoke again, then continued inside.
The smoke made his eyes burn as Arthur waded through it. He called out Fenchurch's name into the gloom. Strange shapes loomed all around him, all cursing and fleeing for the newly widened exit. The air was thick with foul odours that Arthur thought was the stench of burning flesh and death, but then he realised it was just the usual odours for a spaceport public lavatory. Just as Arthur started to despair, he heard Fenchurch cry out.
Arthur plunged down an aisle towards her voice. He passed several stalls, some open, some closed, some torn open with the door dangling off its hinges. Fenchurch called out again, and it was coming from one of the broken stalls. The smoking crater in front of the stall told him that the blast had been centred on that one stall. He rushed up to it and wrenched the remainder of the door off.
A Uni-Loo sat inside the stall, a spherical mass of pipes, wires, chrome, and porcelain. "Share and Enjoy," the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation's motto, was painted on one side. It looked like the explosion had only smudged it. Any device built to survive Vogon waste had to be built to last.
Fenchurch's voice came out of it. "Arthur, are you out there?"
"Fenchurch! Yes, I'm here." Arthur ran up to the Uni-Loo and pushed the button to open it.
The Uni-Loo spoke in a soft and pleasant voice. "Thank you for using the Universal Lavatory Waste Management System. I'm sorry, but this facility is currently in use. Kindly find another stall."
Arthur pounded on the Uni-Loo. "Open up! Let her out right now!"
"I'm sorry," the Uni-Loo purred, "but this facility is already in use. Only the user can open it."
"Fenchurch, you have to open it from the inside."
Arthur heard pounding inside as Fenchurch yelled, "I'm trying, but I can't figure out how to open it. Is there a button or switch?"
"My sensors," said the Uni-Loo, "indicate that the user has not used the facility yet. Until it has been used, I cannot open the door."
"What?"
"Oh," said Arthur, "I forgot."
"What's it on about?"
"Well, the Uni-Loo is set up to automatically flush and open the door when it senses you've finished. It's sort of like those lavatories on Earth that don't have a handle and only flush when it senses you get up. You have to, um, use it before it opens."
Fenchurch pounded on the door again. "But I don't have to go anymore. I was just almost blown to pieces. That's the last thing on my mind. Can you just open the door?"
"I'm sorry," the Uni-Loo sighed. "But I cannot open the door until the facility has been used."
"Why not?" Fenchurch yelled.
"I'm sorry, my programming is quite specific."
"Oh, forheaven's sake," said Fenchurch, followed by a splashing noise.
The Uni-Loo's voice turned cold. "Oh. I see how it is. Fine."
The Uni-Loo cracked open like an egg, leaving Fenchurch crawling out, soaked in a mixture of sweat and lubrication fluid, gasping for air.
Arthur pulled Fenchurch out of the Uni-Loo. "I thought you said you couldn't go."
Fenchurch rubbed a sleeve on her forehead. "I couldn't. I poured out my soda."
The Uni-Loo snapped itself shut. "I can tell when I'm not wanted. If you're going to be like that, then go ahead and leave. But the next time you have to go, don't bother coming 'round here, because you won't get any sympathy from me."
Fenchurch kicked the Uni-Loo. "Are there any mentally well-adjusted machines in this Galaxy?"
Arthur led her through the clearing smoke, heading for the exit. "None that I'm aware of. What happened?"
"I haven't the faintest idea," Fenchurch gasped. "I was heading into the stall, when these three men in purple armour came out of nowhere and said they were sent to kill me. I tried to talk them out of it, and they said they'd had enough of arguing with people they were going to kill and fired a rocket at me. If I hadn't dove into that thing, I would've been blown to pieces."
Arthur hugged her to himself. "Good lord, why would anyone want to kill you?"
"Not a clue. They said it was for something I was supposed to do in the future or something like that. Said they were from the Campaign for Real Time, whatever that means."
By then, Arthur and Fenchurch had found their way out of the lavatory, but Arthur stopped and turned to face her. "The Campaign for Real Time?"
"Yes. Do you know them?"
"Yes. Even worked for them for a while. If this has got something to do with them, then it's got to do with time travel. This could get a bit sticky."
Fenchurch moved out of the way of a trio of fire-control robots that arrived to put out the fires in the lavatory. "Time travel? Is that possible?"
"Oh, yes. Done it a few times myself, never really cared for it." Arthur began digging through his satchel. "We're going to need help."
"What kind of help?"
"Slartibartfast."
"Did you just sneeze?" asked Fenchurch.
Arthur pulled out his copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy again and began pushing buttons. "It's a name of a very old man who travels through time quite a bit."
"I'm assuming that means our trip to Ursa Minor Beta is canceled. Well, go find us a ship. I'm going to find another lavatory. One where I won't get blown up."
To be continued...