Heart of Darkness

Chapter 2: Infinite Improbability

As if muffled through a fog, Ron heard a familiar female voice counting: "Two hundred and sixty-four thousand to one against and falling…" He shook his head, and watched one of his legs float away. As if swimming through treacle, he turned to look for Sirius, and noted that he appeared to have changed into a large black dog. A sound made him turn his head again to see what was making the chattering noise that came from behind him. "Excuse me," said the Spokesmonkey, "My friends and I would like to talk to you about this Shakespeare script we've just worked out." Ron saw a line of monkeys stretching to infinity. He closed his eyes, and wondered if he were dead.

The voice continued its mesmeric counting, "One hundred and twenty-five thousand to one against and falling…" Ron thought to himself, I know that voice, who is she?

"Fifty thousand to one against and falling…" Ron woke again, and the voice was still counting. What did those numbers mean? Was heaven full of mathematicians?

The voice continued (who was she?), "Do not be alarmed. Anything strange you see will shortly return to normal. Welcome to the spaceship Heart of Darkness which is powered by the unique Infinite Improbability Drive. Five thousand to one against and falling…"

The numbers fell, until finally the voice said, "One to one. Normality is restored, although we are not sure what normality is anyway."

Ron opened his eyes properly. His arms and legs seemed to be exactly where they were supposed to be. Sirius was himself again. The Shakespeare-writing monkeys had disappeared. Ron stood up and looked around. "Wow, this is more like it! This is what I call a spaceship! All shiny metal and clean surfaces. Better than that old wreck the Voldems had!"

Sirius too was looking around. "Yes," he agreed, "I think it's brand new. Heeey…" Sirius was looking at a viewscreen that showed an image of the ship's bridge. He muttered to himself, "Lucius! You old Black Arts space wizard! You stole this ship, didn't you?"

Up on the bridge, Lucius Beeblebrox half sat, half lay in the enormous captain's chair, two sets of long blond tresses cascading over its back. It was difficult to see where his black leather outfit ended and the black leather chair began.

"Hey, ten out of ten for style, Babe, but zero out of ten for intelligence. Picking up hitchhikers was not a great idea. Who are these guys? They could be Galactic Aurors!"

"They would have died if we hadn't picked them up, Lucius."

"So? Death is an awfully big adventure, they say."

"Anyway, I didn't pick them up. The ship did it itself. Look, there's something odd happening. The probability when we picked them up was one billion, four hundred and eighty-three thousand million, five hundred and seventy thousand, one hundred and fifty to one against. Don't you see the significance of that?"

With one head, Lucius stared at this woman he had picked up. He cradled the other in his hands. She scared him sometimes. Usually, he lorded it over everyone. He had been voted the Sexiest and Hippest Sentient Being in the Universe for three years running. However, she was so devastatingly intelligent that he couldn't cope with her leaps of intuition. (Actually Lucius was rather stupid, but far too vain to realise it.) So he just nodded, and said, "Er, yeah…"

"Look!" Henger displayed the probability figures on the viewscreen, and changed the format. "It's my phone number! And didn't you notice which sector of space they were picked up in?"

"Er…"

"It's the same sector where you picked me up!"

"Yeah? Who are these guys anyway?" Lucius changed the viewscreen to show the cargo bay, and the two hitchhikers came into view. "Hey! Sirius! Who'd have thought it? Snape?"

Snape the paranoid android replied in fruity, lugubrious tones, "Yes?"

"Go and fetch the hitchhikers and bring them up to the bridge."

"Just that?"

"Yes."

"Oh, I see. Brain work again."

"Just do it, okay?"

"I'm going, I'm going." Snape strode off, his black cloak billowing behind him, muttering under his breath, "I don't know. Here I am, brain the size of a planet, and all they say is, 'Fetch me a coffee, Snape', 'Get the hitchhikers, Snape', 'Pick up that piece of paper, Snape'…"

Meanwhile, Lucius looked around him. "Now, which is the most nonchalant chair to be discovered in…?"

Sirius and Ron jumped and turned around as Snape slipped silently into the cargo bay, and said in his hypnotic voice, "You two are to come with me to the bridge."

"Fine," said Sirius. He and Ron followed Snape into the lift. The doors closed, sighed and spoke, "Enjoy your trip." Ron pulled a face.

"Ghastly isn't it? The Sirius Cybernetics Corporation has given all their products Genuine People Personalities," said Snape. He glared at Sirius balefully. "Your family has a lot to answer for. Look what they did to me!" Sirius shrugged his shoulders, and spread his hands out, palms upwards. "Distant relatives," he said, slightly apologetically.

"Did they make you?" asked Ron in disbelief, eyeing the brooding form with its straggly black hair and pale, pinched face. He looked away quickly: Snape's black eyes were almost as hypnotic as the voice.

"I was a prototype," sniffed Snape. "They didn't make any more like me."

"I'm not surprised. What are you supposed to do with a depressed robot?" said Ron.

"What are you supposed to do if you are a depressed robot? That's what I want to know," replied Snape gloomily. Sirius and Ron exchanged glances. Both were mightily relieved when the lift stopped. As they stepped out, the lift doors said, "Glad to be of service." Snape stared at them, sneering.

Sirius and Ron walked onto the bridge. Lucius was lying so nonchalantly in his chair that he was almost horizontal. He raised one of his arms. "Hi, Sirius," he said casually. "Oh, hi Lucius," replied Sirius equally carelessly, looking round the bridge, "The extra arm suits you. Hey, this is a pretty neat ship you've stolen!"

"Who's the Mudblood?" asked Lucius, looking at Ron in a bored way.

"Oh, he's not a Mudblood, he's Pure Blood too. Lucius, this is Ron Prang from Guildford on Earth. Ron, this is my semi-cousin Lucius Beeblebrox, ex Galactic President."

Ron was standing rigid, staring at Lucius with narrowed eyes. "We've met," he said.

"Met?" demanded Sirius. "This is Lucius Beeblebrox from Bellatrix Five, you know! Not Fred Jones from Birmingham!"

"We've met," insisted Ron, glaring at Lucius, "Only he called himself Tom Riddle then, and he only had one head, and two arms. Don't you remember that party in Islington? There was a wonderful girl there I was planning on asking out - devastatingly intelligent, very pretty - when up you came, and said to her, 'Hey, Babe, don't waste your time with this dude, come away with me, I'm from another planet!' "

"Well, you have to admit, he was from another planet," said a female voice behind Ron. He spun round. "Hermione Granger!" he gasped.

"I'm Henger now," she said, going to stand proudly beside Lucius. "What choice did I have? With a degree in Dark Magic and another in Astrophilosophy, it was either that, or the Job Centre on Monday."

"So you've been on that miserable planet too?" Sirius asked Lucius.

"Yeah, I hitched a lift with a Teaser."

"What's a Teaser?" asked Ron.

"They're rich kids who land on some planet that hasn't discovered interplanetary travel yet. They choose some remote spot, put a pair of antennae on their heads, and walk up and down making 'beep-beep' noises in front of some person that nobody's going to believe. Rather childish really," said Sirius.

Lucius put one arm around Henger. "I grew that one just for you, Babe," he winked.

Henger said, "Now, how about a drink for our new companions. Snape, would you do the honours?"

"Certainly, Madam," replied Snape sarcastically, "Then would you like me to switch myself off, or just rust where I'm standing?"

"Snape, we really appreciate your work," said Henger, desperately trying to placate him.

"Don't pretend to care. I know you don't. Don't worry, I'll get your drinks." Snape stalked off, muttering under his breath. He returned with a tray bearing a bottle of gin, a large bottle of tonic, an ice bucket, a plate of lemon slices, and five glasses. He prepared the drinks, and presented the tray to Lucius. Lucius, keeping one arm around Henger, helped himself to two glasses simultaneously with his other two arms. He raised the glasses.

"Sirius, hi and welcome! Earthman, hi and welcome! Gin-and-tonics, hi and welcome!" So saying, he downed the two gin-and-tonics with one swallow from each mouth.

Then one face frowned. "Henger, is this kind of thing going to happen every time we use the Infinite Improbability Drive?"

"Very probably," replied Henger crisply, surreptitiously trying to stop Lucius' hand snaking upwards from her waist, as she gratefully downed her gin-and-tonic.

Ron sipped his drink thoughtfully. "Is there any tea on this ship?" he asked forlornly.