THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE RED DWARF

CHAPTER 3

Welcome to Part 3! Well, a lot's happened since we began, hasn't it? Oh, by the way, I'm PC Kevin Goody. Right now I'm making coffee for the rest of the chaps. Been a bit of excitement round here—we've had an actual ALIEN turn up on our doorstep! Those chaps from Scotland Yard are with him now. MI6, I think they are.

We still don't know where Inspector Fowler is, but I have an idea: he and the alien somehow switched places. So Inspector Fowler is on the alien's spaceship . . . somewhere. I suppose he'll come round eventually.

Also, does anyone know why my copy of Lord of the Rings  is all different? I've never actually read it, just seen the film . . . but I'm pretty sure there wasn't anyone with two heads in it. I'd have remembered.

Anyway, enjoy the story! Now let's just hope I don't drop the tray again . . . Inspector Grim's just had his trousers pressed.

There was a shimmer in the air . . . and in less time than it took Reggie Wilson to come up with a terrible idea for a CD single, the Vogon materialized in Red Dwarf's drive room.

Rimmer went into Cringe Mode. "Terribly sorry about that last remark, Your Alienness. No disrespect intended at all."

"Look, man," Lister said, "your captain isn't here."

"He must be!"

"No, he isn't." Holly insisted. "I've scanned this whole ship top to bottom, and he's nowhere in sight."
The Vogon would have raised his eyebrows in astonishment if he'd had any. "Then where is he?"

"Lost."
Rimmer rolled his eyes again. "We know that, Holly . . ." At that moment he was thinking that they were all truly in deep smeg . . .

. . . which is exactly what the Heart of Gold's crew were thinking when they saw elven archers aiming straight for them.
"Can't we all just get along?" Zaphod said to a wary Arwen Evenstar. She didn't know what to make of this strange creature with two heads, or the metallic man-like creature beside him.

"We're all going to die," Marvin droned.
"Stop saying that! We are not!"

Arthur, thankful that he had the Babel fish handy, looked at Arwen and said, "Excuse me, miss . . ."

The look she gave him made him want to crawl under something till it was safe.

"We, uh, seem to have gotten lost."

"You are human."
"Yes. Yes, I am."
"And what of these?" She looked from Zaphod to Ford to Marvin, and back to Arthur.

Arthur took a deep breath (it wasn't the first time he'd done it, nor would it be the last). "They are . . . foreigners. My traveling companions." He hoped the Babel fish could translate that accurately. Wasn't there a language in which "stranger" meant the same thing as "slave"?

"Interesting choice of traveling companions, to be sure." Arwen said.

"You're pretty interesting yourself," Zaphod said, eyeing the top of her dress.

Arthur gave him a "not now" look and continued. "Can you help us find--" He rummaged through the cluttered attic of his brain in search of the right word. "The Ring-bearer?"

Arwen's eyes widened in amazement. How did this stranger know of the Ring-Bearer? Could he be a messenger from the gods?

She motioned to her father, Elrond, who immediately came to her side.

"What's going on?" the Elf Lord demanded.

"Well, Your Highness," Ford said, "We seem to have gotten lost. Arthur, I don't suppose you have that book handy so we can check what page we're on?"

Arthur checked his pockets. "No, I don't have it."
"Book? What is this?"

"OK," Ford said, "let me try to explain this to you, Your Highness . . . it is Your Highness, isn't it?"

Several of the Elves snickered. That wasn't a good sign.

"Do something," Ford whispered urgently.
"What? This wasn't in the book!"

"This is going to turn out badly." Marvin droned.


Thousands of light-years (and at least one dimension) away, in the corporate headquarters of Galactic Inventions Limited, the board of directors was convening an emergency meeting. The company's top scientists had finally started to notice the problems the Reality Flipper was causing.

Thank Bob the Legal department had included so much fine print that there wasn't the chance of any lawsuits.

Or so the executives thought until an android summons server arrived at their boardroom with a notice that they were all being subpoenaed.

The charges were ridiculous. They were insane (the charges, that is, not the executives).

"Is this for real?" one of the executives asked. "All of history will collapse?"

"That's what it says on the subpoena." another executive answered.

"But we didn't do anything!"

"Are you sure?"

"What's this about 'space/time anomalies'?"

"Who on Magrathea is 'the Jupiter Mining Corporation'?"

"They're not on Magrathea, that's the whole point! You lot have smegged up four separate time lines . . ."

There was total silence in the boardroom (a rare event).
"You've also played havoc with the fabric of reality and done Bob knows what kind of damage to our balance sheets for this fiscal quarter . . ."
The silence was broken by a horrified collective gasp.


In the Gasforth police station, Habib and Trillian talked over coffee.
"So you're from around here?"

"Yeah, kinda." Trillian said.

"How'd you get into outer space?"
"Well, it started at a party . . ." Trillian then launched into a short but impressively detailed review of her time with Zaphod.

"Wow."

"Yeah." Trillian said. "So Maggie, you seein' anybody right now?"

"Not really. The last bloke I dated turned out to be interested in Kevin." She nodded towards Goody.

Professor Crichton, with Camille in tow, pulled into the police station's car park. "Where can I find Inspector Raymond Fowler?" he asked Gladstone.

"Your guess is as good as mine."

Goody heard this and said, "He just vanished in a puff of smoke, he did. But if you want to talk to Inspector Grim, his office's just round the corner."

In his office, Grim wished he too could vanish in a puff of smoke. He didn't want to deal with this monumental cock-up, especially with a crucial promotion at stake.

"Are you Inspector Grim?" asked a tall man with a clipboard in one hand. "I'm Professor Edward Crichton."

"Are you here on official business?"

"Indeed, I am. It's about the extraterrestrial you have locked up in your holding area . . ."

"You know about that?"

"Colonel Holland of MI6 told me about it."

"Who? Oh, Lister's boss. I suppose you could see him . . ." Anything to get you out of my office in a hurry, Grim thought. He stood up. "Right this way . . ."

Back on Red Dwarf, Fowler and Lister were consulting the Guide to see if they could find anything about the Reality Flipper.

"Nothin'."
"Must not be fully up-to-date, then."

Rimmer threw up his hands. "Just smegging lovely."

Cat made one of his rare appearances then. "Anyone seen my mousse?"

"We've got slightly more important things to think about at the moment, laddie." Fowler answered in understandable irritation.

"Nothing's more important than my hair looking good!"

"I beg to differ, Mr. Cat." Fowler retorted indignantly.

"That's only cause yours looks like it's made of plastic!"
"Cat!" Lister said. "Be nice!"
"Nice? He insulted my hair!"
"I beg your pardon! I did nothing of the sort!"

"If we could all calm down for a moment, sirs," Kryten interjected at that moment, "I think I may have found something that could help us . . ."

"This better work."

The foursome them accompanied Kryten to the ship's science lab. "Here you can see what appears to be a crude dimensional transporter device. The science lab was working on it just before the accident that wiped out the crew."

"Not the teleporter again?" Lister groaned.
"Teleporter?" asked Fowler.
"We wanted to test this thing to see if we could travel to other planets. So we end up nearly being executed by Nazis, taken prisoner by Elvis, and watched Rimmer teach Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and Stan Laurel how to be vicious killing machines."*
Fowler blinked. "I don't quite follow you."

"Trust me, bud," Cat said, "you don't want to."

"No, this is a completely different device," Kryten said.
"That doesn't mean it's better, though. This one could swap our heads or somethin'."

Thinking of Sgt.Dawkins, Fowler said, "Well, let's give it a go, anyway. If it does swap our heads, we won't be any worse off than we are now."

Cat gave him a look. "I don't want you taking care of my hair!"

"Let's just try it, all right?" Rimmer sighed.


Everyone else involved in this interdimensional merry-go-round were themselves searching for a way out.

In the boardroom of Galactic Inventions Limited, an atmosphere of near-total hysteria had set in.

"Open the window! I want to jump!"
"Get in line, idiot!"

"Gentlemen, please," a voice said calmly, "suicide isn't the answer to your problems . . ."

"If you can think of anything better, let us know!"

On board the Heart of Gold, Aragorn and Boromir gazed with interested at the Reality Flipper.

"How does it work?"

"It's on Page 4 of the manual." Eddie said. "See that bright red switch on top?"

"Yes . . ."

"That's the power switch."

"What next?"

"Put your thumb on the little scanner thingy there..."

Hesitation. "Is this . . . safe?"

"Sure it is!"

"I don't trust that machine," whispered Legolas.

"This may be our only chance to get home," countered Boromir. "Would you refuse it so quickly?"

Back at Gasforth Police Station, Agent Lister, Constable Rimmer, and Professor Crichton crowded into the cell with the Vogon.

Professor Crichton, naturally, had a lot of questions . . . most of which were too technical for the Vogon to answer.
"Look, I just stomp around and shout at people. I'm not a rocket scientist."

"All right then," Crichton said, "let me try to put it in simpler terms...."

"We're gonna be here all smeggin' day," Lister moaned to Rimmer.

"And all night." Rimmer answered.

"What is taking that lot so long?" Inspector Grim was getting more and more impatient by the minute.....

"Sir, Scotland Yard is on Line 1."
"Tell them I'll call them back!"

"They say it's important, sir."

"Oh, all right." He picked up the phone...

Meanwhile . . . Eddie was continuing to explain to Boromir and Aragorn the workings of the Reality Flipper.

"Then you put your left hand here . . ."
"Yes?"
Eddie went on in a singsong voice. "You put your left hand out, you put your left hand in, and you shake it all about--"

"You haven't been into the Wicked Strength Lager, have you?" Aragorn said, rolling his eyes.

"Me?" Eddie said. "Heck no! I'm a computer! I can't drink anything!"

"Is there a computer equivalent, perchance?"

"Nope."

"Someone turn this thing off!" came a shout from Pippin, who was stuck to the ceiling in the next room thanks to a malfunction in the ship's gravity field. (Again. The Heart of Gold was notorious for its malfunctioning gravity generators.)

"But nobody even asked for tea!" Pippin tried frantically to pull himself off the ceiling.

"Want a little help with that?" Eddie said.
"No--NO!"
Too late. Pippin dropped like a rock . . . and landed on Merry.

"Get off! Get off!"
"Sorry! Blame Eddie! He stuck me to the ceiling and then dropped me!"

"I did not!"

Back in Middle Earth, Arthur and Arwen were trying to work out . . . well, everything. Seeing as how the fabric of reality had been twisted up like a soft-baked pretzel, it was impossible to know where to begin.

Nevertheless, Arthur started with what he remembered from the book and worked from there.

Naturally, it wasn't an easy task.

"Right," he began.
And then stopped, because he didn't know what came next.

Fortunately, Ford stepped in, and offered a more comprehensive explanation.

The Elves looked at him as though he didn't have a clue what he was talking about.

"We're done for." Marvin sighed.

"Oh, don't be so negative," Zaphod said. "Let them groove on his vibe . . ."

And grooving they were . . . odd as that seemed. It was as if Ford had tapped into some kind of common frequency. The actual words didn't matter.

Maybe he was part elf. Maybe Elves were part aliens. Who knew?

 Arwen found herself thinking that this Ford person was really an interesting man to say the least. Even a bit . . . attractive?
Or was that taking it too far?

In any case, he made a lot more sense than the metal one. Or the one with two heads. They were baffling creatures...

Meanwhile, back at Gasforth Police Station, Gladstone and Agent Lister were discussing important matters.

"Is it just me, or is Shirley Bassey the greatest singer in the world?"

"She's all right," Gladstone admitted, "but she doesn't hold a candle to Gloria Hunniford."

"Gloria Hunniford? Get outta town!"

"She has a voice like-"

The debate was abruptly terminated when Rimmer declared, "You gentlemen are both wrong. The greatest voice in the history of the world belongs to none other than . . . Reggie Wilson."

"REGGIE WILSON?"
The entire station stopped in their tracks and their heads swiveled to the trio.

"Dear God, man, are you INSANE?!" Dawkins spluttered.
"Reggie Wilson is a hack!" Habib insisted. "He couldn't carry a tune if he had six lorries** to help him!"
"He's absolutely brilliant!" Rimmer insisted. "His cover of Springsteen's 'Born to Run' revolutionized organ pop!"

"Yeah--it put people off of it." Grim snickered.

Rimmer couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Constable," he said to Goody, "tell them what a genius Reggie Wilson is!"
"Who's that, then?"

Rimmer swung over to Gladstone. "You agree with me that Reggie Wilson is the greatest male singer of all time, don't you? I know whom you consider the greatest female singer of all time . . ."

"Reggie Wilson's trash." Gladstone told him.

Rimmer spluttered with rage. "Doesn't anyone know good music when they hear it?"

"Yeah, we do." Habib said. "That's why we avoid Reggie Wilson like mad cow disease."

At the holding cell, Professor Crichton and Agent Lister were trying to figure out what to do with the alien now.

"Don't suppose we could bung him in a taxi, eh?" Agent Lister said to Crichton.

"Not unless it's a really big one."

"Van?"

"Possibly."

"What's all this talk about vans, then?" the Vogon asked Lister.

"We're takin' you back to headquarters," Lister explained.
The Vogon became indignant. "I can't go anywhere!"

"Why not?"

"What if the force beam that brought me here returns for me, and I'm not here? I'll miss my chance to go home!"

Professor Crichton blinked. "Force beam?"

"I presume that's what it was."

Interesting, Professor Crichton mused to himself. He'd heard of such things existing in theory, but no one to date had ever actually witnessed such a phenomenon first-hand. The new arrival was turning to be more and more interesting by the minute . . .

*in the episode "Meltdown

**Lorries=UK slang for trucks