It is said in the The Encyclopedia Galactica that odds and probability were once thought to be determined by various deities rolling dice in a game that they liked to call Boxxlonious Greep. Or, as translated into its more modern vernacular, Life. Each living being, whether they were aware of it or not, was a player in this game and everything they did was determined by a roll of the dice. The higher the roll, the more proficiently they accomplished something. The lower the roll, the more abyssmal the results. Which, really, when you think about it, explains a great deal about many people's behavior.
The Guide has this to say about odds and probability: When it seems probable that the odds could be against you, most likely they will be. Its nothing personal, you understand, but when the two of them get together, they seem to quite enjoy indulging in their favorite pasttime of general suffering and chaos. Odds and Probability aren't wholly cruel entities, however. Your toast will not always land butter-side down, they just prefer when it does.
If that were, indeed, the case then it would seem Marvin's toast had an innate talent for landing butter-side down. That was, if he bothered himself with such drivel as eating and breathing. Not only were they unnecessary to his function, being the gloomy robot that he was, but both were a symptom of the one thing he hated most - living.
He had waited with what he deemed to be most generous patience on his part to shed the ridiculous form he was currently encased in as he went about his normal duties. Being millions of years old, he couldn't remember the last time it was that a single 24-hour span seemed to drag on so. It was a dreadful thing, this human biology. It was no wonder the rest of the crew was so insipidly demanding when they had drives and functions that were nearly as obnoxious as their commands.
Take machinery for example - when it required something, it would inform you of such by putting one of its many polite little hazard lights ablaze, beneath which it would usually state what it needed, in what quantity, and how much of your free time it expected to monopolize until the problem was amended. Living bodies were nowhere near as cordial. When it was in need of something, it caused its owner pain in some degree with no explanation. You would know when the need had been met when, quite simply, you stopped hurting.
As a being of vast intelligence, Marvin knew well the function of nearly all of the universe's creatures despite the fact he really wished he didn't. The thought of anything achieving satisfaction in something so simple in form as hot food or cold drink nearly overloaded his circuits with envy.
There were many who would call a hot shower, for instance, the cure-all for a bad day...or night as the case might have been. As Marvin stood in the steamy recesses of the Heart Of Gold's bathing chamber, he decided that he would call it a needless reason to make onesself resemble a drowned rat. The whole unpleasantry of the washing business was long-since past and now he simply stood there in the spray, waiting. With any luck, he would revert back to his android self at any moment and promptly be short-circuited by the water.
As the shower began to run cold, he realized that this was not likely to happen and with another fathomless sigh, twisted the faucet off and pulled a towel off of the rack. Getting sopping wet just to dry off immediately afterward...what was the point? There was none. There was no point to any of it. Perhaps he'd take a lesson from the chinchilla and learn to bathe in the dust. It was where he always ended up anyway...trampled and forgotten in the dust.
He had no sooner begun to piece his clothing (how he hated clothes) back on, when there was a familiar and unwelcome chime from overhead. "Hey there, fellah!" Eddie's voice chirped. A pair of gray eyes narrowed in response.
"If you've come to further my misery with your smugness, I'm afraid you're wasting your breath. I simply can't be any more miserable today." Marvin answered flatly, struggling into his shirt.
"Sorry to interrupt, I won't stay long. I'm just busting my bolts to report that President Beeblebrox has asked me to pass along a message!" with that Eddie's voice phased out and in phased Zaphod's voice in a playback of what had been said in the cabin a few moments earlier.
"Hey kid!" he declared. "What'd you do? Fall in?" The statement was followed by raucous laughter that would have made Marvin's hackles raise if he had any. Silence followed.
"...that's it, then?" Marvin grated out.
"Yup! Toodles!" and with that, Eddie was gone, leaving him alone once more. His head sagged, suddenly too heavy to hold up any longer, as he stepped into his pants. Perhaps he preferred it when he was simply a robot. At least then he could occasionally entertain the notion that everyone hated him merely for his programming. He hadn't chosen to be a prototype, after all.
He was just going about the botheration of tying his boots when there was a knock at the door, which strained to open and be gratified by a job well-done. That was the one thing he hated least about this entire blasted ship...the fact that the bathroom door DID lock and therefore denied the door the gasping sighing pleasure of opening and closing whenever it liked.
"Marvin?" It was Trillian.
"All in good time" he intoned, moving to hang the towel back where it belonged. If he didn't, they'd, no doubt, just make him come back and hang it properly later. In doing so, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. It was even worse than he'd thought. Not only was he humanoid, but wasn't even attractive by the flesh creatures' standards. He looked to be well into his middle-years, his long face deeply-lined with contempt and ageless knowledge, slate eyes peering down a long nose. His hair, jaw length and ending in a meticulously-straight line made him look very much like a schoolmaster who'd long-since had the stars fall from his eyes regarding the world in general.
How loathsome. He supposed if he could even be bothered to examine further up his nose, he'd find it infested with hairs, filth, and...just thinking about it made him shudder in revulsion. Just when he'd thought he'd hit rock bottom, leave it to the powers that be to pull out the drills and start burrowing on his behalf.
"Marvin!"
Oh yes. She was still out there, wasn't she? Far-be it that he take up what was, no doubt, her most valuable time. Skulking across the room, he deactivated the doorlock, bracing himself with a noticeable twitch as the door gave a near-orgasmic sigh of bliss and slid aside to reveal a rather perturbed-looking Trillian.
"You've been in there for nearly two hours." she pointed out.
"I was just leaving." he informed her, moving to shuffle past. "I'd hate to think that I was inconveniencing anyone, especially when my existance is a large enough inconvenience as it is." he snarked. He might have kept going for quite some time if she'd not spoken before he had the chance.
"Are you all right?" she asked his retreating back, making him stop short, the question verberating around in his head like a rubber ball off of the walls of an enclosed room. All right? All RIGHT? Since when did -anyone- give a thought to whether he was all right or not?
"As right as can be expected...by which I mean utterly terrible." was the reply. Trillian nodded once in reply.
"The others thought you may have had problems...adjusting." she said, choosing her words carefully, a luxury with which Marvin had not been familiar.
"Did they?" his voice was devoid of interest of any description, though his brain was working furiously. Marvin was the robot. The metalman. The Paranoid Android. People asked him how he was doing occasionally out of obligation or as an attempt to initiate conversation that they inevitably ran screaming from...no one ever asked, or cared, if he was all right.
There was a beat of uncomfortable silence and then both of them went their separate ways, Marvin to wherever he'd been headed on the ship, and Trillian to the bathroom for her morning shower as the door swept shut behind her with a contented "Mmmm".
"There he is!" Zaphod announced from the galley. "Marvin, baby, come take a look at this!" For a moment, he debated simply continuing onward. They only called him for one reason and that was when they wanted something done. No longer having a program to follow, he was given the freedom of choice as to whether he ought to tolerate their drivel. He hated it, of course, because choice went hand-in-hand with another emotion that he'd liked to have thought of as dead to him. Guilt.
His guilt sector had been mercifully hammered into oblivion millennia ago by a well-meaning meteor that Marvin was quite sure had meant to finally assist him in shuffling off this mortal coil. The mechanics had done everything they could, but he'd still pulled through. Oh well...
He dolefully made his way into the galley, his dejected glare crawling over Zaphod, Arthur, and Ford as he did so.
"This probability glitch," Zaphod was saying, smiling and showing an unsettling number of teeth.
"What of it?" Marvin inquired, quirking one brow.
"I just thought you'd like to know you're not the only one suffering." he replied with a degree of triumph, as though this was some great discovery. He swept a hand at Ford who was in the process of pouring himself another drink while still looking very much sober and likewise very much frustrated. With the odds as they were, roughly every third glass of the stuff had any effect on him and the rest was as though he was drinking potent water. He did not, most usually, start his day off with a drink, but after having a near-sleepless night in which he'd spent most of it consoling a gender-confused Arthur, he felt he was entitled.
Arthur sat across from him, a steaming mug of liquid between his hands and looking none-too-happy about it. While Ford's luck with the 2:1 seemed to be touch-and-go, he'd hoped his own might prove better. Unfortunately, even with a 50/50 chance of understanding what tea was, the Nutri-Matic Drinks Synthesizer had given him the same bilge it always did. Or perhaps it had nothing to do with that at all and moreso the idea that he was still trying to acclimate himself to the idea of being an unwilling eunich for a bit.
Marvin looked at one, then the other, and then back at Zaphod who was watching him like a hawk for some sort of reaction. What was it he was waiting for, precisely? A chortle? A smile? A finger of enlightenment to descend from on-high and jab him in the solar plexus so that he might finally understand what true happiness was? His expression remained perfectly and unwaveringly dejected.
"When you've carried the weight of your own insignificance on your shoulders all of your life, then you can talk to me about suffering." he stated, managing to elicit a grunt of disgust from both of Zaphod's heads. "I suspect I might enjoy a kindred spirit. Or perhaps not. It may depress me all the more to hear what I must sound like to all of you."
"Would it kill you to lighten up?" the captain demanded to know.
"If it would, I suppose its worth a try." he answered and then, for some variety, sighed again. "I guess it had to happen eventually."
"What did?"
"Brain the size of a planet and you, of all people, finally raise a question that even I can't answer."
"What question is that?" Arthur inquired dejectedly, though anyone's dejection sounded optimistically sunny when put beside Marvin's. The gray-haired man didn't answer and sauntered out of the galley. When he was gone, Zaphod made a fist and pounded it for dramatic emphasis on the countertop.
"We should have sold him off for parts when we had the chance." the president of the galaxy growled.
"It isn't like this is some sort of variety or anything." Ford chimed in. "Its Marvin and he's acting like Marvin...what's the big deal?"
"When a robot acts like a jerk, you can play it off as bad programming, right?"
Arthur and Ford gave a garbled mutter that may or may not have been affirmative.
"No programming, no excuse." Zaphod replied. "And if I have to put up with the bastard on this ship AND act like he's some kind of person, HE can make some adjustments."
Arthur and Ford exchanged a look.
"No offense or anything, but since when do YOU care about anyone here besides yourself?" Arthur inquired.
"This IS caring about me." Zaphod replied indignantly, quite possibly one of the only creatures in the universe to feel the need to defend himself when people thought that he wasn't being selfish for a change. As he'd said, it was one thing when a robot behaved as Marvin did. Robots were created to serve the higher beings, and being slaves, they could act however they damn well pleased as long as his demands were met. Truthfully, Zaphod was simply too caught up in himself and simply hadn't paid attention to Marvin before aside from the occasional annoyance and roll of the eyes, so it was quite probable that he'd never even -noticed- how truly annoying the Sullenoid could be.
But humans, or whatever Marvin currently was, you couldn't keep as slaves. Not anymore. Not seriously, at least, and not without written consent forms signed in treble by said slave. However, if Trillian ever heard of any of that, he had no doubt he'd be on the recieving end of sleeping by himself for at least a few nights. There were many things he'd "neglected" to mention to her about his previous love interests when he'd picked her up from her doomed planet those months ago, and they were neither here nor there anymore. However, Trillian WAS a woman, and she would, of course, demand the who's, what's, where's, when's and how many times's as though he should be able have them readily available and calculated.
Ugh, women.
Ugh, THINKING.
As Zaphod's derailed train of thought crawled its weary way back to the tracks, he tried to resume where he'd been going with it the first place. Ah yes, Marvin. So Marvin was no longer a robot and therefore no longer a slave. That much alone upset Zaphod's routine of familiarity and intruded into his bubble of self-idolization. What bothered him the most about it, was that he simply couldn't relate to him even now. Believe it or not, Mr. Beeblebrox did have his own way of relating to people, however slight it was. He smiled and said hello, they smiled and said hello back...or at the very least gave him a look of proper befuddlement. Even Arthur, that stupid ape-descendant, had the courteousy to do that much.
Not Marvin, though. Marvin only gave you the time of day if you asked for it, and even then not without much groaning about how awful an inconvenience it was to his already-dreadful existance.
So yes, this was very much a selfish venture. Zaphod's mission of the moment had become to knock that self-righteous twit off of his pedastal for the sheer enjoyment of watching him squirm a bit before he went back to being Gloomy Robot Marvin and none of this would matter anymore. But then, knowing Zaphod, none of this would matter anymore in the next change of subject let alone waiting for the android to revert...
A few moments after Marvin had made his exit, Trillian entered the galley, hair still damp and towel still about her shoulders as she dared to venture a request to the Nutri-Matic.
"Orange juice." she told the machine as it whirred to life and immediately went about the business of filling a cup with the synthesized equivalents of chocolate sauce and scotch. "No, no, not the--" she began to protest as the machine finished the concoction and presented the cup.
"Share and enjoy!" it chirped. Rrgh...
"Awful, isn't it?" Ford asked, pouring out the last of the bottle's contents and finding himself not even tipsy as she, in turn, dumped out her cup.
"I don't think I'm going to get used to this." Trillian sighed. "The first time I turned on the shower in there, pink bubbles came out. The second time, smoke."
"And the third?" Arthur asked as she fixed him with a look of exasperation.
"Water. But it was cold."
"Ah." he nodded, looking balefully down at his "tea" once more.
Zaphod looked to his three shipmates, blinked, and then shook his head in disbelief. "Its a conspiracy, isn't it?" he groaned as Trillian, Arthur, and Ford looked to him. "All of you, you sound just like him!"
"Are you STILL on about it?" Arthur snapped impatiently.
"Still on about what?" Trillian asked, not sure she wanted to know. Every time she turned around, Zaphod was on about SOMETHING...
"This Marvin nonsense!" he huffed. "We're in the middle of space, I can't get a decent cup of tea anywhere, now my bits are missing, and he's all up in arms because the bloody robot--"
"Ex robot." Zaphod corrected.
"--isn't acting the way he fancies!"
"Arthur..." Trillian sighed, trying to be diplomatic. "...once the Improbability Drive is fixed--"
"Who's going to fix ME?" Arthur demanded, throwing his hands up in the air.
"Hey..." Ford said, reaching across the table and clapping a hand on his friend's shoulder. "Relax, okay? That sort of thing is outpatient surgery these days."
"Surgery?" Arthur yelped.
"Well, surgery's a stretch, I guess." he shrugged. Arthur squirmed. "What I mean is, its mostly done with lasers."
There was a near-audible slam as Arthur's legs clamped together and a look of abject horror spread across his features. Ford, realizing he wasn't helping much, excused himself from the galley without further ado.
"Trill!" Zaphod said, new hope injected into his voice as he caught her wrist. "You're good with people!"
"That's quite the deduction, Zaphod, I'm impressed." she stated blandly. She liked to pride herself on her patience in regard to her lover, but this was too much, too early. They had an entire day to get through yet.
"And you can...you know...relate to them."
"I relate to you, don't I?"
"Then -you- talk to Marvin." He said it as though the problem was already solved as she blinked twice and then pulled her wrist free of his grip, staring at him as though he'd grown a third head.
"Marvin?" she repeated. "You want -me- to relate to -Marvin-?"
"He's annoying me!" Zaphod complained in the same petulant tone of a child being held back from a passing ice cream truck. Her eyes drilled into his, begging him not to be serious. His eyes drilled right back stating that yes he was QUITE serious...or was he? Who knew? Her gaze dropped first as the beginnings of a headache stirred in her temples.
"I can't make him act differently just because you'd like it, you know."
"But you can try, right?" he inquired as she made a non-committal noise in response. She hated being put on the spot. Somewhere along the line, Zaphod had decided that part of the female mystique was that they were able to fix anything and everything. Except himself, of course, because there was nothing at all that needed fixing on a perfect being.
"We'll see." she responded, giving him one last glance before turning to go. Zaphod's arms, all three of them, shot out and gathered her close in an embrace from behind.
"Aww c'mon, baby, don't be like that." he murmured against her ear. "How about I make it worth your while?" he suggested, making a smirk ghost on her lips spite of herself. "Tonight...?"
There was a loud grunt from Arthur's direction as he reminded the both of them that he was, in fact, still there and that his hearing wasn't one of the things he was currently missing. Taking the out as it was offered, Trillian slipped out of her boyfriend's hold.
"I'll talk to him." she assured Zaphod as she padded out of the galley to locate a hairbrush. And she would, she knew...for all of the fat lot of nothing it would do, she would find Marvin later and they would have a talk.
