Author's Notes: Sorry for the very long delay, but I now have my 10th chapter up. Though I guess, to you guys, it's only my 9th chapter, since it would seem that you didn't know I have already put up a 9th chapter, or else one of you would review it, which you didn't.
July 23, 2011
Witness Holding Center, Damogran
"Welcome to 7D Gal./Sid. News, the best coverage in interplanetary weather, sports and news brought to you here on the sub-etha wave band, broadcasting around the galaxy, around the clock, and we'll be saying a big hello to all intelligent life forms everywhere... and to everyone else out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys.
"And of course, our big news story tonight—preparation for the Zaphod Beeblebrox trial! Our scouts down on Damogran tell us a new batch of witnesses have arrived; most notably, Downid Zarniwoop, former president of the Ursa Minor Beta publishing offices of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, for years thought to have been dead ever since his disappearance back in 03959, now proved to far from dead, yet nevertheless remain slightly dirty and the owner of an out-of-style suit. No word yet on where we was though.
"Remaining with the theme of the Guide, an unnoted Guide reporter, Roosta Neffa, has also arrived at Damogran from a journey to the second moon of Jaglan Beta (believed to be the most deserted moon of any Betalian planets, to which only two ships have ever landed on, both of them flown by people described as being "terribly lost"), which had caused suspicious that he would never find his way back into mainstream society. Also, our scouts have told us that two people came on Zarniwoop's ship, though no one seems to know who the second person is. More on that later. Oh, and before we continue, there was another person coming along on the witness flights—Gag Halfrunt, Zaphod Beeblebrox's private brain-care specialists, who our viewers may remember, appeared for four-second interview six years ago, the night Zaphod originally stole the Starship Heart of Gold. And now, the question remains, did Gag come to act as a witness, or to help the ex-president through this psychologically trying time? And, if so, there's the other question—has the Big Z finally flipped? Hehe—nah, that happened a long time ago. But has it happened again? More on that later.
"Our second top news story tonight—another Hrung has collapsed, this time on Diadem III!"
Ford Prefect glanced up.
"It's true!" continued the announcer. "The worst Hrung since 03758, make that the only Hrung since then that our Galaxy has ever seen!"
Ford's eyes remained glued to the screen. He had originally just tuned in to see if they mentioned his name on any news reports (they hadn't), but now he thanked as many gods as he could think of.
A cold silence fell over the hotel room, the only sound in the room being the crystal clear OHD (Overwhelmingly High Definition) voice of the news anchor reverberate against the drywall.
"Now, for those of you who don't know," said the newscaster, "a Hrung is sssssssssssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh."
The reporter didn't actually say this, of course, but to anyone who wasn't watching the screen, it would've sounded like that, because the screen suddenly turned to static, and both the sound and the picture were lost.
Ford Prefect's eyes remained frozen, too surprised to move.
Ford did not realize that the static he was looking could only come from the disturbance of sub-etha waves brought on by a clone of an ex-president falling through a wormhole in spacetime.
Ford watched the screen for about 15 seconds before he stood up, ran over to the door, opened it, rushed into the hallway, ran across the hall, and skidded to a stop outside Arthur Dent's room.
He furiously knocked on the door.
"Arthur!" called Ford to the door.
"Yes?" answered the door, or at least a voice coming from behind it.
"Open the door!"
"Ford?"
"Yes, open the door!"
"Why, what is it?"
"Just open the door! Hurry!"
"Alright, hold on."
"I can't hold on, just open the damn door!"
"Umm…Ford?"
"What?"
"I can't."
"What?"
"I can't open the door."
"Why not?"
The door paused sarcastically.
"Well, it's written in Galactispeke, my electric card key's AI doesn't seem to like my enough to listen to me, and it's about two hundred years more advanced than any hotel door technology than I've ever seen."
Bloody sapien, thought Ford, now getting the hang of sarcasm. "Okay, okay, I'm going to break down the door."
"Umm…what?"
"Stand back!"
"I'm already cowering behind the curtains," said the door, its voice slightly quieter.
Ford took out his towel, walked over to the water fountain a few feet away, soaked the towel in water, walked back over to the door and wrapped the towel around the card key port.
There was a quite shock of light, and a few sparks fell off the door, but at least the electric lock was shorted out, which would make it possible for his to break down the door.
He took out a Kill-o-Zap pistol (after that encounter on Magrathea with those dreadful liberal cops, he had found that Kill-o-Zap's are quite effective.
He held up the gun to the hinge and launched a single flash of electric radiation.
"Okay," called Ford's voice from behind the door. "Okay, I'm going to break down the door."
Arthur stared at the door, and began backing up towards the window.
"Umm…what?" he called, as he crouched down behind the curtains.
"Stand back!" called Ford.
Arthur explained his current location.
There was a pause, and for about twenty seconds, nothing happened. Arthur didn't begin to try to guess what Ford was doing.
Then there was a loud buzzing sound, like the sound of a taser. Arthur shut his eyes.
There was the sound of a small explosion, followed by a burst of sparks showering the floor, followed by a lightly toasted door falling to the ground.
Ford Prefect rushed into the room, stuffing some sort of ray gun into his satchel, tossing the satchel on the ground next to the bed,and hurling himself in front of the TV.
He quickly walked back and forth as the TV motion detectors searched for the station he was looking for.
The TV switched on, showing some sort of news show.
Arthur began to wonder how you can turn on a TV by walking in front of it.
Ford, however, did not even blink, which is very easy for a Betelgeusian to do.
"…which causes the Hrung to collapse," said the newscaster. "Wow, I never actually knew what a Hrung was until I read it on the teleprompter. Anyway, I'm afraid what one is is pretty much all we can tell you about this Hrung, since all our cameras were destroyed in the collapse, along with anyone who could have told us anything about it."
Ford's whole body tightened.
"Arthur."
"Yes?"
"Take that Babel fish out of your ear."
"Why?"
"Because I am about to swear very much, and I think it'd be better if you didn't understand what I was saying."
"Um…alright…wait, how exactly does one go about removing a fish from one's ear?"
"Simple. Think something in a different language. You'll stop emitting alpha waves and start emitting beta waves, since you're not thinking in your normal brain path. The Babel fish'll drop right out."
"Um…alright…voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir."
Ford, who had studied many Earth languages during his time there, including French as well as English, stared at Arthur for a few seconds before realizing that he probably didn't understand what he had said.
The Babel fish wriggled out of Arthur's ear.
"Good," said Ford in English. He then inhaled deeply and began shouting in someone Arthur couldn't even begin to try to understand.
"Geshen emmelsh onofoads sotrashna sech malfomk neshel rosheff!" howled Ford. "Roshan ultiroll kosh, shen greb nevine wequezzan! Koshin shem naffem leshiked! Leffosh Zarquon, meshen bleruben!"
He collapsed on the bed like the Hrung he didn't know anything about.
"Okay," he muttered in English, his voice strained and breathless. "You can put the Babel fish back in your ear."
July 22, 2011
GFLEC Landing Bay, Damogran
The ship coasted down onto the pad as the landing gear let out a hiss of compression.
An exit port opened up and an escalator folded itself out of the ship until it reached the ground.
Gag Halfrunt stepped onto the escalator and felt the dry Damogranian wind against his face.
When he got to the ground, he stepped off the escalator and looked over to see another ship landing.
Two men walked out.
One of them was a short man wearing a faded suit torn in several places. The other man consumed Gag's interest much more.
The man was a tall, thin man with an unshaven face, faded skin and straw-coloured hair. He walked in a sort of glide, and his body seemed to be tense, seeing as the heat of Damogran felt strange against his life on a cold, humid planet.
Gag knew all about this man.
Zaphod Beeblebrox had only sent him one message since he had disappeared, and that had been about the fact that someone named Zarniwoop told him that years ago, the two of them formed a plan to find out who the Ruler of the Universe actually was. He gave Gag all the details he knew about what had happened.
Gag had already formed a plan in his head.
He reached into a satchel he carried with him and pulled out a machine that had the same function, yet was nothing like, a video camera.
He waited until the cops he had traveled with weren't looking, then bounded over to the plaza in front of the building.
He approached any random person walked through it and said, "Hey, recognize me?"
"Um…no."
"Gag Halfrunt, Zaphod Beeblebrox's private brain-care specialist."
The strangerpaused, recognizing the name.
"Hm…wait a second…yeah, I remember you from a few years ago. You were on TV, that guy who said, 'Zaphod's just this guy, you know?'"
Gag grinned.
"Yeah, that's me. Look, can you do me a quick favor?"
"Depends, what is it?"
"Well, start take this ReCordEr, okay?"
ReCordEr: full name, the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation's Refined-definition Recording Viewer. Again, a quite good-sounding composite, by another fortunate coincidence.
He took the ReCordEr reluctantly.
"What do I do with this?"
"See that guy over there?"
"Who?"
"That one, right there! With the robe!"
"The one with the light hair?"
"Yeah, great, you've got it."
"You want me to film him?"
"Well, first, I should probably tell you who it is. That man…"
"So far, so good."
"…is the Ruler of the Universe."
The person regarded Gag with a strange look.
"Cool."
"I'm serious."
"Who said I wasn't?"
"I am, and I'm telling you, you're wrong. Haven't you ever found it strange that every single president this galaxy, or any other galaxy, as you will see if you do some research, has been grossly unfit for the job? An actor, or an alcoholic, or a soldier, or a schizophrenic. Their job has always been, as is a little-known fact, not to control power, but to draw attention away from those who do it. That's why they always pick such unsuitable candidates. Because it honors and humbles him or her so much, that the sheer joy brought to someone by being in power is so much that they don't have time to realize that they're not. And that is why the president has to be someone unsuitable for the job. They need to have never expected to become president, so they spend the whole term celebrating. That's also why when Zaphod Beeblebrox announced his attention to run for president, a full 17 months before the poles opened, it was more or less a fait accompli. He was perfect to be president for the sole reason that he was anything but perfect to be president.
"And in a universe of a hundred thousand million billion trillion quadrillion worlds, all without a leader, who can lead? Someone out of the limelight. Someone in the shadows, who controls the fate of the Universe in his very hands."
"The fate of the Universe is in the hands of a man who just questioned the existence of the ship he just got here in, seeing as he cannot see it from his point of view?"
"Shut up! I'm telling you, that's him! And when you find out I'm right, you're going to be famous for alerting the universe of the truth."
"Why will I be famous?"
"Because you will have given the film of him to every news network you could find."
"What film?"
"The film that you took with the ReCordEr you were given by a man who ran away shortly after giving you instructions on what to do with it."
Gag Halfrunt took off running, and was lost in the crowd around the square within seconds.
The person who held the ReCordEr clumsily held it up and pressed play.
July 23, 2011
Witness Holding Center, Damogran
Ford Prefect stumbled into his hotel room and nearly tripped upon entry, over a piece of derelict equipment that's full intelligence hadn't been used for a thousand quadrillion years.
"Ow!" said Ford. "Stupid piece of junk lying around. Wait. Hold on. Marvin. He'd know."
Ford crouched down beside the robot and flipped a switch on his left circuit port.
The dim, green light of Marvin's eyes surfaced.
"Oh thank you very much for disturbing my latest fit of lying alone and turned off and wallowing in my own depression which wasn't very fun to do in the first place so I probably should actually thank you even though I already did and I would thank you again but that would be repeating myself and that's something that only primitive trillion-celled organisms do and I'm far more advanced than that and just thinking about what it would be like to be an organism is so depressing that I've lost any positivity that could have been brought to me by you waking me up from my latest fit of lying alone and turned off and wallowing in my own depression, which, I might say, is a very strong emotion in me."
"Oh, yeah, afternoon to you to."
"Are you being sarcastic, or are you just really that unintelligent?"
"Marvin, you're pretty smart, right?"
"I'm so smart, there isn't even a number invented for my IQ yet."
"Well, good, 'cause that huge, depressing head of yours is going to come in handy."
"I doubt it. It never has before."
"Well, maybe you're wrong about that."
"Yes, and maybe I'm wrong about this whole trip not being the most undreadfully unpleasing joy I have even had the strict displeasure to not be displeased at avoiding."
Ford stared at him.
"Do you enjoy torturing organisms?"
"I don't enjoy anything."
"Right, right, stupid question. But here's one that isn't—"
"I doubt it."
"What," said Ford, "is a Hrung?"
"A Hrung? I need an Encyclopedia Galactica to find out what that is. Unfortunately, there isn't any Galactica's around here, just book loaded with useless theories about how the god they're describing is the best. Speaking of sacrilege, doesn't it give a definition in that book you're always carrying around? The sub-etha one? The Freeloaders Handbook to the Universe?"
"Hey, watch it, strag. Hitchhikers take pride in what we do."
"Wandering around the Galaxy aimlessly and hiding from the police in seedy spaceports at 2:00 AM (because you're so drunk you think they want to arrest you for being too cool, while instead they want to invite you to the bake sale on Saturday) chugging down a bottle of Janx while raving on about some beautiful supermodel girlfriend from Sirius you made up while being kicked out of some grungy bar a hundred miles away after punching a fellow drunk after he not only claimed that some bankrupt sports team from whatever dead planet you came from could do better if the first baseman were a one-legged Arctrurian MegaDonkey while waiting to catch a ride on a bus you actually paid for while still trying to maintain an identity as a hitchhiker by carrying around a pink flower-design towel and a book that's most intelligent definition of anything in the Universe comes plagiarized from a cereal box?"
Ford sighed.
"Oh, those were the days…"
Marvin glared at him.
"Anyway," said Ford, "no, if I checked the Guide for an entry on Hrungs, it just says that Hrung is something that is almost, but not quite, entirely unknown by everyone but the inhabitants of Betelgeuse VI. They go on to mention their job offer from anyone from BV, and assure readers that it has nothing to do with Hrungs. Then again, it also says that Pan-Galactic Gargle Blasters cure spontaneous combustion, and goes on to advise readers to ignore the fact that the 2,416th acknowledgement of the book is to the Beeblebrox Gargle Blaster Brewing Corporation listed under the "financial contributions" section, so I wouldn't trust everything it says. But don't try to mention this to them, or they'll have a judge expand Life's restraining order from Truth to 200 feet."
"Humans are by far the most depressingly annoying species I have ever had the displeasure to make acquaintance with."
Ford glared at Marvin.
"Okay, so, you don't know what a Hrung is?"
It was Marvin's turn to glare at Ford.
"I never said that. I said I needed an Encyclopedia Galactica to find out what one is."
Ford's face fell. Despite having been raised on Betelgeuse V, he was conceived on Betelgeuse VI, while his father was on his way to V, so his genetic coding was that affected by the amount of radiation from the star Betelgeuse hitting the planet Betelgeuse VI, which was a different amount of the radiation hitting Betelgeuse V (the amount of radiation that hit Betelgeuse V is what caused BV'ers to have to heads, like Zaphod). He wished he had been born on BV, like Zaphod, instead of on BVI, so he could have two heads, or rather two faces, instead of one—one to fall, and one to glare at Marvin coldly.
Wait a minute, thought Ford. "Zaphod!" he howled aloud.
"Marvin, look, I know you probably won't care," said Marvin (yes, Marvin, not Ford), "but I gotta run. Thanks for your help, anyway."
Ford stared at Marvin as if the robot had just explained the entire history of the East India Company in three seconds without skipping a detail.
"How did you…?"
"When you've spent 629,000,000,000,000,000,000 years alongside a type of species," said Marvin, "their mode of speech becomes as predictable as what type of vehicle a factory cruiser-making machine will make next. Sound horrid? 'Cause it is."
Ford nodded.
And backed away quickly.
And ran out the door.
Arthur Dent watched Ford Prefect walk out of the room.
Arthur shut his eyes. It isn't often that you see a man from Betelgeuse unleash a torrent of alien swears that you couldn't only understand because, at the time, a small leech hadn't been eating your brainwaves.
Arthur Dent didn't often have a lot of time to himself when he could understand what was going on and wasn't dreadfully worried about something that had just happened to him, a time when he could actually hear his own thoughts.
And he thought about his situation.
There was only one other human in the entire universe that could say, truthfully, they that had survived the destruction of the Earth to make a bypass by hitching a ride with an actual UFO, and she was currently a few doors away in a hotel room.
Arthur closed his eyes again, remembering about all he and Tricia had gone through.
He had been in love with her to start, ever since he had first seen her a few weeks before that cocktail party.
He had tracked her down, making sure he knew if there would be an opportunity to meet her in the immediate future, and then his friend over in Islington had invited him to a party that he knew her to be going to. So he waited at home for about ten minutes after the time he should have left, contemplating what to say to her, and eventually decided that if it took him ten minutes to figure out what to say to someone, then he clearly had no hope of coming to a definitive conclusion. And so he left his house in Kilburn and drove over to Islington, and then he met her.
He found she was remarkably easy to talk to. He, of course, didn't think this, he found that when he uttered so much as a word, he was blabbing on and boring her, and if he stopped talking for a second, he was being to quiet and she wouldn't want to talk to someone who wouldn't talk back.
Tricia, actually, found his perfect mix of intelligence, ignorance and embarrassment gave him a sort of squirmy charm. But if Arthur had just been a bit more interesting, she wouldn't have—well, we didn't like to talk about that.
Then he met her again, and until they were separated by about two million years after teleporting off that rock star's ship, their entire time together was like the awkward silence when two people can't think of anything to say, but two weeks long.
Then he had met Fenchurch back on the dolphin's second Earth, and he had so close to completely forgotten her as anyone can get.
But Fenchurch was gone. He remembered the horrible feeling of loss he had suffered after she had been sucked through that pan-dimensional vortex on the plane (It may be in space, but I'm still calling it a plane, thought Arthur to himself), and he decided not to think about that either.
But Tricia was here. The only living remnant left of the greatest planet in the universe, as Arthur thought.
There were only two beings in the universe that held this status.
Arthur paused. He remembered back.
Back past his transportation to Damogran, past his unfortunate experience at Stavro Mueller, back past his journey through spacetime with Ford, past his life on Lamuella, past his journey on the Bistromatics ship, past his life on prehistoric Earth, past the 'B' Ark ship, past the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, past Magrathea, past the Heart of Gold and Zaphod Beeblebrox, past the Vogon Constructor Fleet ship and the Vogon poetry, past the destruction of Earth, past Ford's nonsensical ramblings during lunch at the pub, past the bulldozers and Mr. Prosser of the local council, back almost seven years of his life and more information than a single being can handle, and back to breakfast.
Where he had enjoyed toast and some orange juice.
And he had read the newspaper.
Complete with the headline DOLPHINS VANISH.
Over the years, Arthur had gradually learned about what happened to the dolphins.
They had left, before the Earth had been destroyed. Flown away. Sped off into the inky blackness of space. They had survived.
Arthur blinked.
Scratch that. Make it three.
Ford Prefect nearly tripped, he was running so fast.
After about twenty minutes of preparation, everything was finally in order for Ford to have a visit.
"Longest twenty minutes of this one of my lives," Ford had kept saying to himself.
But the guard finally told Ford that everything was ready, and he walked through the door. (Yes, through. The door was made of a hyper-advanced and currently undiscovered gas that's instability was quite practically useful, seeing as it, with the right equipment, could be adjusted to a hard and soft state that allowed for it to open or close without moving, or, indeed, opening or closing.)
Zaphod Beeblebrox slumped down on the bench, and the intercom, reading his brainwaves, switched itself on.
"Hey, man," said Zaphod (or at least one of his heads, the other was asleep), "good to—"
Zaphod was interrupted by his second head's snoring. He knocked his awake head against it.
"Huh? What?" said Zaphod, waking up. "Oh, hey, Ford, good to see you!"
"Yeah," said his second head, "but it's, um, kind of late."
"Yeah, I know, but I really gotta ask you something."
"Great. What is it?"
"Well, Zaphod, you're from Betelgeuse V, right?"
"Yeah, I sure am," said Zaphod with a smile, "and proud of it. Well, thanks for asking, see you in court."
Zaphod was just about to get up and leave, but Ford cried, "Wait! Come back!"
Zaphod sat back down.
"What now?"
"That wasn't my question."
"It wasn't?"
"No."
"Well, then, Ford, that poses two problems that you really should sort out with your mode of speech—one, that of tone, you really should learn to not put an inquisitive tone on a phrase that is not a question, and two—you shouldn't add "right" at the end of sentences that aren't questions or else someone might think that you're asking a question, which you're not. Anyway, I think a few months of speech therapy and a few more months of linguistics classes back at Maximegalon should sort these problems out, and once these are done, you can come back here and visit me and you and I can have a nice little speech-mode-correct conversation. Good night."
Zaphod stood up to leave again.
"Seriously, come back and listen to my question!" called Ford.
"All right, but only because you asked me to."
"Okay, great. Now—what is a Hrung?"
"You don't know?"
"No, I don't."
"Really? You don't know what one is?"
"No."
"Well, I've never heard anyone call you an Ix."
"No. Well, after I found the name Ford Prefect, I went back in time and changed my name to Ford Prefect at birth, undoing every time someone had ever called me Ix over the decades."
"Well, Ix, I'm afraid I can't tell you what one is."
"What? Why not?"
"Because when I was a kid, I made a pact with my friends on Betelgeuse to call anyone who doesn't know what a Hrung is (in a specifically strong way, like you) an Ix, and refuse to tell them what one was. I made sure to remember this, because I'm such a hoopy frood that I never go back on a promise unless I really want to, so I made sure to keep this is my mind, even when I locked off all my memories with that Zarniwoop guy. So now, I'm sorry to say, that I really need some sleep, and I'm gonna leave now."
"Bye, Ix," said his other head.
Zaphod get up and walked out. A wave of hatred washed over Ford.
"Marvin, look," muttered Ford, pushing open his room's door, "I'm not going to pretend I'm sorry for leaving so abruptly, since you'd just point out the fact that I'm lying."
"At least you're improving," said Marvin glumly.
Ford slumped down face-first on his bed.
"You said you wanted to know what a Hrung is?" said Marvin.
"Yeah," muttered Ford.
"I suppose you want me to tell you now."
"You said you didn't know that."
"I repeat, I never said that. I said that I needed an Encyclopedia Galactica to tell you what one is."
"Yes, but you said you didn't have one."
"I never said that either. I said that there isn't one around here."
"But those two phrases are interchangeable."
"No, there not," said Marvin, thoroughly annoyed. "Look, I said there wasn't one around here. I never said there wasn't one here, specifically."
Ford groaned.
"I happen to have an Encyclopedia Galactica installed into my databanks."
"Well, why…didn't…you…tell…me…that?"
"You didn't ask."
"Well, can you tell me what a Hrung is?"
"Yes. A Hrung is a celestial body created through a rather pointless process involving lots of explosions. As I know"—Marvin made sure to say "I," as he was sure that Ford probably didn't know what he was about to say—"there are three kinds of stars: white dwarf, giant and supergiant. All stars in the universe eventually burn out and explode, causing a black hole. Whatever kind of three stars it is, the bigger the black hole. When a dwarf burns out and turns into a black hole, and a giant that has not yet burned out is sucked into it. The structure of a giant star inside a dwarf black hole is known as a Hrung. A Hrung can also be created with a giant black hole and a supergiant star. The Hrung, under the compression of trillions of pounds of matter pressing against it (coupled with the fact that the giant can't actually fit inside the dwarf black hole) causes it to explode so quickly that it generates twice the force of a nova. This explosion is also coupled with the explosion of all the matter in, and sucked up by, the black hole. All this creates for one giant explosion. This explosion, seeing as it causes the gravity mass stability of the Hrung to give out, is also known as a collapse. This has only happened twice, but both times, they had the force to take out an entire large-sized planet, all of its thirteen moons, and every shred of the Prixabetel civilization."
Marvin paused, and added, "Wretched, isn't it?"
Ford stood is stunned silence.
"So…" he murmured, very quietly, "that's what a Hrung is?"
"No," said Marvin. "I don't know what a Hrung is. Galactica doesn't know what a Hrung is, either. I just figured you'd enjoy those ten seconds where you thought you knew what a Hrung was. I didn't, though."
Marvin shut himself off.
Arthur Dent glanced over beside his bed.
Ford's satchel was lying beside the bed.
Arthur could remember Ford always carrying it around with him, but he never knew what was in it.
He reached over and picked it up.
Inside, he found a mirror, a sub-etha wave band, some sort of ultra-advanced radio, scissors, a pencil, and a tape recorder.
Arthur picked up the tape recorder—he didn't know why, he just thought it would be a good move.
He looked at the note Ford had scribbled on the cassette inside it.
NOTES ON ASTROLOGY
Arthur frowned. He pressed play.
To his surprise, it was a recording of Monty Python's Galaxy Song, off the radio.
Arthur found himself greeted by the voice of a now dead human, giving off various astronomical facts in a silly and comical way that only the English could do. He found it to be quite fitting for his current lifestyle.
After about two and a half minutes, the last lines reverberated in his mind.
"Pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth."
Arthur paused to reflect on these lines, and he thought of the aliens he knew.
There was Ford, and Zaphod, the Vogons, Slartibartfast, the Golgafrinchans, Agrajag, Old Thrashbarg, those policemen on Magrathea, those mice, and that alien randomly appeared and insulted him.
Arthur paused for a moment.
Intelligent life somewhere up in space.
No, thought Arthur. Nothing I know of that fits that description.