July 23, 2005
12:03 PM
Arthur sat on the stairs with his head between his hands and had not the faintest idea what to do. Ford was sitting on the stair beneath him. He picked something up, looked at it with interest, and passed it up to Arthur.
"This mean anything to you?" he said.
Arthur took it. It was the book of matches which the dead man had dropped. It had the name of the club on it. It had the name of the proprietor of the club on it. It looked like this:
STAVRO MUELLER
BETA
He stared at it for some time as things began slowly to reassemble themselves in his mind. He wondered what he should do, but he only wondered it idly. Around him people were beginning to rush and shout a lot, but it was suddenly very clear to him that there was nothing to be done, not now or ever. Through the new strangeness of noise and light he could just make out the shape of Ford Prefect sitting back and laughing wildly.
Galactic Federal Law Enforcement Centre, Damogram
June 15, 2011
10:13 PM
"The next rift's in about 20 seconds," said Hoksh. "Get ready."
"Will this hurt?"
"Imagine that you've jumped into a giant pile of jelly."
"Again?"
"No, it won't hurt."
"Man, that sure was one wild party…"
The two of them were staring at what looked like a seven-foot tall metal circle. A strange dark slime covered the space within the circle. This machine was called a Matter Rift Turbine Generator. The machine used matter samples taken from a supernova to power a search generator, which searches for duplicate particles of matter all over the Universe. In short, the machine searches the Universe for supernovas, and when it finds one, it uses a Matter Transference Beam to shoot the MRTG and whoever's in it straight into the supernova. The massive explosion is one of the only things in the Universe that can generate enough force to power an MRTG's turbines with enough energy that it can send someone through time itself.
The effect of an MRTG's harness of a supernova is called a 'rift.'
The room Zaphod and Hoksh were in was a large cylindrical metal room with nothing in it but a flat surface that curved to form walls, a floor and a ceiling without any corners. In the middle of the room was the large metal circle. In other words, the MRTG's portal, and the slime was the portal entrance.
"Hold on!" said Hoksh.
Zaphod and Hoksh leaped into the portal.
There was a flash of blinding light.
New York City, Earth
Arthur paused for a moment, looking around at the strange scene.
"Oh, man!" laughed Ford. "You should see the look on your—!"
"Ford, shut the hell up!" yelled Arthur.
He slunk his head down. Since everyone else had all run out, there was a nervous tension in the room. Tricia was a few blocks away, getting a taxi for Random.
Arthur began hoping that they had all been too afraid to call the police.
"Oh my God," he murmured to himself. "I need a drink."
Ford laughed again.
"You of all people," he said.
"What?"
"Remember that time a few years ago? When we were back on Earth in our own dimension? Right before we hitched a ride with the Vogons?"
"Don't remind me."
"Right before they came, I offered you a drink."
"Shut up."
"And you said it was only lunchtime!"
"I said shut—!"
Arthur froze.
"What did you just say?"
"What?"
"What did you just say, Ford!"
"I said when we were on Earth right before the Vogons came, I offered you a drink and you said it was only lunchtime. Well, now it's lunchtime again, and—"
"Hold on!" yelled Arthur. "What day did the Vogons come?"
"Umm…some time in June…it was a Thursday, I remember that."
"And what's today?"
"It's, uh…hey! It's Thursday again! Neat."
"And what day is it?"
"Its…well, you have a digital watch. Do those things have dates on them?"
"Yes, yes they do…and it says 7/23. Do you know what that means?"
"Umm…well, tell me what you're about to say, and I'll get back to you."
"Dear God, Ford! It's Thursday, June 23, 2005 at 12:00!"
"So?"
"This is the time the Vogons come to demolish Earth!"
"It is?"
"Ford, please, for the love of God, say you have your hitchhiking thing."
"My Electronic Thumb?"
"Yes, for fuck's sake, yes!"
"Oh, sorry."
"WHAT?"
"I don't have it."
"Oh, God, no! Ford, don't you see? We're going to die!"
"Of course we won't. You forget there's two other of us down in Cottington, and I have an Electronic Thumb there."
"Yes, them-we aren't going to die, we-we are!"
"Yes, I can see your dilemma."
"Ford, you son of a bitch!"
"Three ones, actually."
Just then, Arthur heard a horrible noise. It was a voice that had chilled both of them to the bone for years.
Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz.
"People of Earth, your attention please. This is Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz of the Galactic Hyperspace Planning Council," the voice continued. "As you will no doubt be aware, the plans for development of the outlying regions of the Galaxy require the building of a hyperspatial express route through your star system, and regrettably your planet is one of those scheduled for demolition. The process will take slightly less that two of your Earth minutes. Thank you."
"Please God," murmured Arthur to himself.
He could see hundreds of people running through the streets in confusion and panic. They didn't know where, but running aimlessly always makes you feel as if you can escape something, no matter how bad it is.
"There's no point in acting all surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display in your local planning department on Alpha Centauri for fifty of your Earth years, so you've had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it's far too late to start making a fuss about it now."
The continual screams of horror.
"I should have warned them," murmured Arthur.
"Good riddance," said Ford.
"What do you mean you've never been to Alpha Centauri? For heaven's sake mankind, it's only four light years away you know. I'm sorry, but if you can't be bothered to take an interest in local affairs that's your own lookout. Energize the demolition beams.
"I don't know. Apathetic bloody planet, I've no sympathy at all."
Arthur closed his eyes.
Somewhere in Space
In the darkness of the bridge at the heart of the Vogon ship, Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz sat alone. Lights flared briefly across the external vision screens that lined one wall. In the air above him the discontinuities in the blue and green watery sausage shape resolved themselves. Options collapsed, possibilities folded into each other, and the whole at last resolved itself out of existence.
A very deep darkness descended. The Vogon captain sat immersed in it for a few seconds.
"Light," he said.
There was no response. The bird, too, had crumpled out of all possibility.
The Vogon turned on the light himself. He picked up the piece of paper again and placed a little tick in the little box. Well, that was done.
His ship slunk off into the inky void.
"Ford."
"Yes?"
"Are your eyes closed?"
"Yours are too."
"Yes."
"I wonder where we are, then."
"Milliways."
The two of them laughed.
"Maitre d'?" called Arthur.
They didn't hear the familiar sound of the voice of the maitre d' of the Restaurant at the End of the Universe's responding, "Yes, sir?"
The two of them laughed again. Their eyes were still closed.
"Shall we open our eyes?"
"Why not?"
"Three, two one…"
They opened their eyes.
"And we're still in the club."
Ford and Arthur looked around. They were still on Earth, in Stavro Mueller's club.
"This is strange."
"I'm going to go look outside," said Ford.
Ford pulled opened the door. He just naturally assumed that all the people on the street were frozen with fear. Wrong.
He turned to his side, and saw a man right in front of him, about to run into him.
"Hey, watch where you're running, pal!" he snapped.
The man just continued to look blankly back at Ford with his expression of terror.
"Hey!" said Ford. "Did you hear me?"
Nothing.
"HEY!"
Nothing.
Ford kicked the man. Nothing.
"Something is wrong," said Ford.
Ford paused, and then realised something.
"Hey," he said. "Why hasn't the beam hit Earth yet?"
Ford looked up. He saw the Vogon ship, he saw the demolition beam coming out of the ship, but, the strangest thing, not going any further. The beam was frozen in mid-air.
Ford laughed.
"Wow!" he said. "I wonder how that happened! Neat, huh?"
He turned back to the man. He was still perfectly still.
Just then, Ford paused again, and he looked down. The man had been running, and was now in the part of a run where neither of your feet are touching the ground. But that didn't change. The man was frozen in mid-air, just like the beam.
Ford stared incredulously at the sight in front of him.
He then turned around.
Everyone in the street was completely motionless.
He looked around more carefully.
To be more precise, everything that could have been in motion was frozen.
Everywhere he looked, everything that had been in any form of motion twenty seconds ago was completely frozen, including things that had been in mid-air. They were just floating in mid-air, frozen as well.
Right before he went back into the club, he pulled open the door and flung it open as hard as he could. It froze instantaneously the second it stopped touching his fingers.
Ford blinked. He ran into the club.
"Arthur!" cried Ford.
"What happened?" asked Arthur.
"You're not going to believe me when I say this—"
"Never have, never will."
"—but the entire world except for the two of us has frozen."
"What?"
"Time has frozen. Except for us."
Arthur frowned.
"I don't follow."
"Look outside."
Arthur stood up and walked to the door.
"Look around," said Ford. "See anything?"
"Yes, many."
"Me, too. Have any of them moved a molecule since my last question?"
"Not one."
"A bit odd, isn't it?"
"Very."
"Arthur! Ford!" yelled a voice.
Ford and Arthur turned around. They saw that rounding the street corner a few buildings away, was Tricia McMillian.
"Tricia!" yelled Arthur.
"Hey, Tricia!" said Ford.
"Where's Random?" asked Arthur.
"She left in a cab a few minutes ago," said Tricia. "But what happened?"
"You mean…?"
"Yes! Time being frozen except for the three of us. What happened? Ford?"
"I don't really know, but I could make something up. Want that?"
"No. But we have to figure out what's going on."
Just then, there was a strange noise. It sounded very close, but after a few seconds, the two of them noticed that it was just a very loud noise from far off. The noise was coming from somewhere off the Manhattan, around Staten Island. It was a loud crash.
Ford and Arthur stared at each other.
There was a blinding flash of light and a deafening crash of sound.
Ford and Arthur stood up and looked around.
A voice came over what sounded like an intercom, but loud enough to be broadcast all around New York. It was a very loud, but familiar voice.
"TRILLIAN! FORD! ARTHUR! WHERE ARE YOU?"
Ford looked at Tricia and Arthur.
"On the count of three," said Ford.
"Okay," they said.
"One," said Arthur.
"Two," said Tricia.
"Three!" said Ford.
They turned to face Staten Island, and in as loud of voice as they could, replied, "WE'RE OVER HERE, ZAPHOD!"
Zaphod held up the Hearing Amplifier up to his ear and paused.
A far off, yet amplified, voice, replied, "We're over here, Zaphod!"
"They're over there," said Zaphod, pointing towards Manhattan. Hoksh nodded.
Hoksh reached into his trench coat and pulled out a small glowing rod. He pressed a button on it.
Zaphod walked up to it and gripped onto the top of it.
There was a flash of light.
When the light cleared, Hoksh and Zaphod found themselves in West Manhattan, outside a small night-club. Tricia, Ford and Arthur were under the awning.
"Hey, guys!" said Zaphod. "Good to see you!"
"Hi, Zaphod!" said Ford.
"Hello," said Arthur and Tricia.
"Who's this?" asked Ford.
"This is Hoksh, from the IGP," responded Zaphod.
"Imperial Galactic Police?" asked Ford. "Why is he—oh, no…you didn't. I knew something was wrong when you responded to 'Zaphod'. You got caught, didn't you."
"Yes."
"Where?"
"Barnard."
"Hmm."
"In the terminal."
"Aww…so close. Too bad."
"These them?" said Hoksh.
"These are them," said Zaphod.
"Ford Prefect, Tricia McMillian?"
"Yes?" said Tricia.
"That's me," said Ford.
"Do you know where we can find Arthur Dent?"
"Look about two feet to the left," said Ford.
Hoksh did.
"Arthur Phillip Dent, of England, Earth?" asked Hoksh.
"Uh, yes, that's me," said Arthur.
"Zaphod Beeblebrox has been arrested on the count of quadruple spacecraft theft," said Hoksh. "He will be tried in court tomorrow. He identified the three of you as witnesses, and you are to come with me to the Galactic Federal Law Enforcement Centre on Damogram for the hearing. Any questions?"
"One," said Ford, before any of the others could say it. "Why has time stopped?"
"Since the trial will take place on June 16, 2011, and you three were killed in 2005, we had to use an MRTG to get here. This machine, due to the fact that it travelled about six years in a period of about 12 seconds, and we programmed the names of you three into the MRTG, the entire Universe for the five of us, to catch up for lost time, will now stay frozen in time for a period of 5 years, 11 months, 3 weeks, 3 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes and 48 seconds. 6 years minus 12 seconds, you see."
"Makes sense," said Ford.
"Don't say another word," said Arthur.
"12," said Zaphod. "I thought 11."
"Hold this," said Hoksh. He held up a small glowing rod.
"Wow!" said Ford. "The new version of Matter Transferors! That is neat!"
"Everyone, hold on," repeated Hoksh.
The four others walked up and grabbed on to the rod.
There was a blinding flash of light.
God's Final Message to His Creation, Preliumtarn
April 9, 2008
2:00 PM
Marvin stepped back off the pedestal and into Arthur and Fenchurch's arms.
The message reverberated in his head.
Never had he ever heard it put so plain, so blatant, so glib. God actually apologised to him. He felt sorry for him. He wished his life was better. It was a strange emotion, what Marvin felt.
He sighed and looked around.
He paused to think of the right words.
He blinked, opened his eyes, and with a certain amount of uncertainty, he told the two of them, "I think…I fell good about it."
He closed his eyes.
Meanwhile, twenty feet away, there was a blinding flash of light, time began to stand still, and Hoksh, Zaphod, Tricia, Ford and Arthur ran down the path up to Marvin.
"What's wrong with him?" said Zaphod.
"He's the closest equivalent to death a robot can have," said Hoksh. "If we're going to fix him, we're going to need to get him back to Damogram, fast."
"Hey!" said Arthur. "It's me, and Fenchurch! What a strange feeling…like looking at a 3-D mirror."
"Come on, Arthur!" said Ford. He grabbed Arthur by the arm and pulled him back into the MRTG.
There was a blinding flash of light.
