Chapter Seven – Lunchtime
Slowly, the raptors looked about them.
The contestants backed off. The majority had the good sense to make a run for it through the trees making sure to take the popular routes and not end up as the defenceless tail-end Charlie. They pushed and shoved for position before putting as much distance between them and the pursuing raptors. The more quick witted and fleet of foot would be safe, they hoped, as the raptors would surely run down the slower celebs and forget about them.
They were right. The first victim was the weatherman whose name nobody could remember, and who had piled on the pounds since he had disappeared from the vidicube screens some years ago.
Zaphod Beeblebrox stood transfixed. It wasn't that he was slow witted or that he couldn't show an impressive turn of speed when it suited him. It was just bad luck. He was hemmed in with dense foliage behind. There was nowhere to run.
"Zaphod, what the hell are you doing? Get up here," said Trillian.
There was something odd about her voice. It wasn't the tone or pitch, but there was something about the angle at which it hit Zaphod's ears. It was as if it was coming from a place that voices ordinarily don't come from when the mouth emitting the sounds is attached to a person you believe to be standing directly at your back.
It was a puzzle that would have to wait as a particularly impressive specimen turned its salivating jaws towards the ex-President. And then Zaphod noticed the other two. There were only three left in the camp proper and they were fanning out in a pincer movement with what Zaphod supposed to be the alpha male in the centre. He fixed Zaphod with a hungry look.
Zaphod used one of his heads to keep an eye on the big raptor in the centre and relied on his peripheral vision to keep track of the one off to the right. He used the other head for staring wide-eyed with mouth agape at the raptor to his left, whilst his intestines made a bolt for his sphincter, only to find the way barred by two powerfully clenched buttocks. His other internal organs cascaded around his ribcage desperately looking for a way out.
"Move it, Zaphod. There's no time."
Again Zaphod felt there was something odd about the direction of Trillian's voice. The raptors were closing in and he took a step back. As his heel caught on the root of a tree and he fell backwards, the Trillian-related voice-puzzle resolved itself. As he lay there he saw her sitting high above him in the tree. He would climb the tree, he decided, giving renewed hope to those bits of him trying to get away, and find a safe perch away from the teeth and talons of the would-be diners at ground level.
It was then that he smelled the foul stench of a carnivore's breath. Fortunately he had momentarily closed his eyes so that he didn't see the two rows of biters through which the breath had passed. He said his prayers. Better late than never, he thought. If God existed then he would surely have a sense of humour, and if anyone had given the Big Guy Upstairs cause for merriment, then that person was Zaphod Beeblebrox, ex-hippy and ex-President of the Imperial Galactic Government. Stands to reason that He had a sense of humour. Didn't it? It hadn't been a bad life. Not really. All things considered. Zarquon be merciful, he prayed.
As he ran out of philosophy – it wasn't really working anyway – he thought he would change tack. He filled both lungs to their full capacity, and in full view of a vidicube audience of countless squillions, let out a scream the like of which could wake the dead on this and a couple of the neighbouring planets to boot.
The sound that Zaphod heard next was peculiarly unlike the one he was expecting. Instead of the crunching sound of molars on Betelgeusian skull, it sounded more like the dull thud of a large heavy object coming into contact with a cranium of non-Betelgeusian origin. He had particular reason to think so because he was the only Betelgeusian in the immediate vicinity and hadn't felt the pain one would ordinarily associate with the sound. It was time for Zaphod to open his eyes again.
Instead of the slippery interior of an outsized velociraptor's front end he saw the muscular back that he knew could only belong to the cricketer, Splat Braynematter. Zaphod peered through Splat's short stumpy but powerful legs and saw the reptile twitching in its death throes. He quickly looked around for the other two and saw that they were still approaching, but with more caution. Nonetheless they were heading in a direction he would have preferred them not to. He shot up the tree with the speed of a squirrel surprised by a fox, but with none of the agility and an additional helping of blind panic. His squidgier internal bits returned to their more accustomed positions, breathed a huge sigh of relief and threw a party. Safe he left Splat to get on with it. He would only have got in the way he would explain later.
From his high vantage point he watched a master in action. Splat went on the offensive. This tactic clearly perplexed the raptors as they were more accustomed to their lunch running away from them, and the thrill of the chase was part of the deal. Food ran away, that's what it did. They ran after it, and if they ran quickly enough and worked as a team they got to eat it. They certainly didn't expect it to come marching towards them with an expression of relish for the violence which preceded their every meal. The food was trying to psyche them out and in some measure it was succeeding. This was totally against the natural order of things. What is the point of a food chain if the very links that were made for eating started to go on the offensive? It should have been the other way about. The raptors were obviously confused and they certainly didn't do running away. It wasn't in their nature. However, the raptors saw something in Splat's cold reptilian eyes as he removed his shades that said this time it was going to be different. Yet it was still two against one. They yipped and danced excitedly on their toes, and then sprang as one.
In a single stroke, that appeared to be no more than a blur, Splat brained the remaining predators, before marching off into the jungle to see what all the screaming was about.
Zaphod and Trillian remained in the tree surveying the scene of carnage below.
"How do you think I came across?" said Zaphod with a pitifully desperate look towards Trillian.
"Let me see now," said Trillian slowly. "I suppose in part it depends on whether or not the whole scene is edited in close-ups, or whether the producer opts for the wide angled shots. Perhaps she'll use a bit of both."
"She?" said Zaphod, his voice still quivering as if he was speaking through a jelly microphone. "Do you know the producer?"
"We both met her. You've forgotten that's all. She was the woman you insulted in the celebrity lounge before we left the studios to come here, straight after the mindwipe."
"Zark!"
"Zark, indeed. If I remember correctly your exact words were: 'Not coming with us? Never mind, perhaps one day they'll do an ugly people special. Yours is bound to be the first name on the list,'" Trillian said in a matter of fact way.
"Zarking fardwarks!"
"So in answer to your question, Zaphod, I'd say there's a pretty good chance that the edited highlights will show it exactly as it happened."