Chapter Two

In one of the entries on dremers, there is a "See this" link in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It leads to this entry on Earth.

Earth has been visited several times in the last thirty years. It is considered a relatively backward world where universal happiness is equated with the passing of multi-colored pieces of paper that they exchange for little digital watches, which they spend their waking hours paying more attention to than they do one another.

Only a few hitch hikers who have had the misfortune to find themselves stranded on Earth were very noteworthy. And let's face it; most hitchhikers who hit Earth are doomed to remain there for sometimes fifteen to thirty years at the most. Only two travelers in particular have documented Earth in its fullest capacity, and only one of those travelers have truly expanded our limited understanding of this backward blue and green world made of water and mud. This person was a dremer, from the planet K-PAX, a forward purple and even purpler world made of dirt, plants, dirt, and plants.

This particular dremer compiled a rather tumultuous volume of information on the nuances of Earth's dominant species, the homosapiens.(See prot's Prognosis) Naturally, owing to the nature of dremers, prot's forecast on the planet was it's own inevitable destruction.

I woke up in a dark room. I didn't realize I had fallen asleep. It was cold but not uncomfortable. Like a small child I reached down and touched my pants, feeling the dampness. I knew it was a perfectly human reaction and that I could have done worse. Perhaps the embarrassment was what cushioned me against the shock of leaving Earth. Dim lights went on suddenly, and I found prot sitting beside me with another device in his hand. He gave it to me. It was flat and grayish and looked like a scientific calculator from Texas Instruments. On the cover was a simple phrase in large white letters, written in perfect English that read; Don't Panic!

Where was that advice a few minutes ago?

"What's this?" I asked.

"The Guide," prot answered. "I love you geno, but I do get tired of explaining things to you from time to time."

I slipped the cover off and examined the device. There was a flat multicolored screen with the words, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Edition 1,490,321,200,569,001 in big animated text. Below the screen were dozens of tiny crystals illuminated by a light source inside. There were letter keys all in Roman characters and arranged in standard keyboard fashion, and below them were number keys arranged like a standard calculator. Along the side were extra buttons for different functions of The Guide. (IE Scrolling, page skipping, selecting, etc.)

"I was hard pressed to find a copy in your language geno," prot went on. "Unfortunately the Galactic Government is even worse than you homosapiens. Things cost money."

"Prot, none of this is making any sense," I said, looking at him. "You told me that no one in the galaxy believes in a government, and that only the ones who abolish it every really advance. Now we have a species ready to destroy Earth and-"

"Not ready to destroy it," prot corrected. "Have destroyed it."

"WHAT!" I shouted.

"Calm down gene," prot said, soothingly. It was amazing how our positions had changed suddenly. Here I was, the terrified patient and prot was the psychologist trying to put me at ease. "You're gonna need a Thorazine drip in a moment. To clarify, the Earth was destroyed exactly when I said it would be. But I was able to work something out with the mirror beam coordinators on K-PAX and FLORA. We've been transported back in time one week to before the destruction of your PLANET."

Now my mind was really reeling. It seemed like prot was going out of his way to answer questions I hadn't even asked yet, which only raised more questions. I desperately needed a fix on reality before I went any further.

"Okay…so, if I go down there now I'll run into myself just before I came to Manhattan?"

"Yes and no," prot said. "IF you were to go down there you might run into yourself. But the laws of temporal physics say that it's not such a good idea. As is we've all ready broken a few laws when I hitched a ride on this vogon transport."

"Vogon?"

"Yes, the vogons. We are now parked just above EARTH right now and they are only hours away from blasting your PLANET into dust."

That did it. I jumped up and grabbed prot by the shoulders.

"I've had enough of this crap prot! We're not back at MPI anymore, it's not my job to keep asking you questions until you decide to spill the whole story with me. My planet's going to be destroyed? Fine, I get that. But I want to know why and I want to know why you didn't tell me about the Galactic Federation in all these years."

To his credit prot didn't seemed the least bit shocked or unnerved by my outburst. The years spent on Earth with Robert Porter must have taught him a thing or two about human behavior. Doubtless in his time traveling from Zaire, to Montanna, to everywhere else in the world he had seen some pretty violent emotions. I let him go and sank back onto the "bed".

"All right doctor brewer," prot said, using my full name to let me know he was being serious. "I will tell you everything I know. And I will explain the gaps in my responses to you.

"Let me first reiterate what I said on Earth. The vogons are interstellar contractors. They do a job and they get paid for it. If they weren't getting paid, EARTH wouldn't be a second thought in their mind. If you want to learn more about the vogons, that Guide will tell you far more than I could. This is the truth gene. We dremers have not been able to get near the vogon WORLD without one of them catching our mirror beam and sending it right back to K-PAX. We took the hint and stopped going.

"The Galactic Government formed eons ago, before the first of dremer's many progenitors crawled from the dirt. K-PAX once received an invite into this government, but as you can imagine…"

"Dremers don't believe in a government," I finished for him.

"Nor do many other races. This much I have told you and it is true. The Galactic Government is made up of a minority of races, some who have never made it past the E-classification. But of those minorities there are many and they are vast and they pretty much control the entire GALAXY. The council, which governs the Galactic Government determines where parts of the Interstellar Highway go. This is the space between planets and star systems that ships can safely travel along if they want to avoid crashing into something.

"K-PAX for the most part, along with FLORA, NOLL, TERSEPION, and a few other planets in the upper alphabetic echelon does not participate nor do we believe in this government and the way it does things. We believe that to destroy a planet for the convenience of others is utterly stupid and selfish. But alas EARTH, along with countless other worlds with far more advanced cultures than your own, has met their fate at the hands of the vogons, or any other number of urban renewal methods in this GALAXY."

"Well, can't you petition to stop this Government?" I asked.

"Of course. But you know as well as anyone how much red tape a government needs to operate," prot said this last bit with his patented brand of snobbery. "And we K-PAXians have attempted to stop the Government at every turn, but since we don't act as full participants in their activities sometimes we're ignored entirely. The nollians have an active seat in the Galactic Government, they're more adaptive than most. They too try to prevent needless destruction, but they're one voice among many. And when the majority wants something the minority, as you know, suffers."

"All right, I understand that. And I take it the minority is speaking for us now?"

"Yes. Everyone else wants this bypass to go through, and unfortunately you guys are smack dab in the middle of it."

"Isn't there any other way it can go?" I asked. "Maybe between Earth and Mars? Perhaps right around the system?"

"Part of the Interstellar Highway all ready passes through this system." Prot said. "As is it can be very difficult just to get a window between here and K-PAX because it has to be coordinated between the times when the high way is most heavily used and the times when it's dead. Are you with me now?"

I took a deep breath. If I hadn't seen prot and the others mirror beaming right in front of me, I doubt I'd have such a good handle on this now. And aside from the wet pants (which were really beginning to bother me by now) I gave myself a pat on the back for holding up as well as I did. "I think so. Accept, why didn't you tell me about the Galactic Government? I would have believed you."

"You thought I was a secondary persona in a multiple along with robert," prot pointed out. "It was hard enough trying to convince you of otherwise. Then to tell you and steve, and the others that there's this huge Galactic Government that is even more pointless and twice as destructive as any of the governments on your PLANET?"

"All right. I guess I see your point there. You were trying to get help for robert and you needed us focusing on that and not on you."

"Exactly. Also, as you put it, we dremers do not believe in the concept of a government. You believe in god, is this correct?"

"Yes, but I don't see-"

"And you are a christian right?"

I nodded, wondering where this was going.

"Well, how many of your children know about the jewish religion when you don't share their same beliefs?"

"My children knew of other religions long ago, prot," I said, almost defensively. "Karen was Presbyterian herself and we didn't believe in forcing our kids to follow one specific faith. But I guess I see your point."

"Well, we have about six days to stop these guys from blowing up your planet." Prot said, getting down to business. "Do you think you're ready to speak on your planet's behalf?"

"Will these vogons listen to us?" I wondered.

"To us? A dremer and a human, I doubt it," prot said. "In fact once they find us stowing away on their ship they're libel to eject us both out of the airlock, in which case I can easily mirror beam us to safety, hopefully before the coldness of space gets to me and we die of asphyxiation."

"Then why the hell did you bring us to a Vogon ship in the first place?" I demanded.

"Because I have something with me that'll make the captain of this ship think twice before killing us," prot reached into his pocket and pulled out flat red pad. "It's an order to take us straight to NOLL, where a meeting of the council will take place to determine Earth's fate."

I leaned against the bulkhead and took another deep breath. Then I looked down at the Hitch Hiker's Guide. It seemed so simple for what I gathered was a very complex and amazing device.

"How does this work?" I asked.

Prot's eyes lit up as he got up and sat beside me.

"Well gene, it's the ultimate repository for universal knowledge and information. Advice, information, and individual accounts from the various contributors going back to the earliest stages of life in the UNIVERSE are all right at the touch of a button."

"But how can it all be in English?" I asked, just now comprehending our place in the grand scheme of things. "Humans are so very new to the world and English isn't much older."

"You got me there geno. Mostly all this does is organize the thoughts and writings of millions of travelers and writers and assigns the most english sounding word to describe it. You might only understand the very recent entries of the last two or three million years. And whatever you don't understand some person from france, egypt, or some other country on your WORLD could probably translate for you. Either way it's better to have it and need it than to not have it at all…and you do need it out here. Every hitchhiker does."

"But I'm not a hitchhiker prot."

"Well gene, we stuck a thumb out, we got a ride aboard an alien space craft and you're going to have to do it again a few dozen times over…if you're going to get back home that is. I'd say you've been slapped with the label myself."

My face fell. "You won't be mirror beaming me back?"

"Lets cross that bridge when we come to it okay."

We spent the next half hour or so in silence. My digital watch stopped working, which concerned me, but fortunately the analogous hands were working perfectly. The smell of my clothes was beginning to get to me and I asked prot if there was anything I could do about it.

"None of the crew have clothes that would fit you," prot said. "I wouldn't worry about it personally. It'll smell worse in the captain's quarters when we're finally brought to meet him. See, if you humans didn't constantly wear the skins and furs of other beings you'd never have to worry about it. Plus, most of you confined yourselves to relieving yourselves in specific little rooms and porcelain devices, which only serve to pollute and destroy the water anyhow. If you stuck to just going wherever you were in your travels you'd actually be contributing to the planet's eco system instead of destroying it."

I didn't want to get into a huge discussion about the bathroom habits of my species. Not that prot and I hadn't discussed worse, but I just didn't feel it would pass the time as well. So I took a closer look at the guide.

Not sure of what to do I pushed a button at random. The title screen faded and a menu bar showed up on the screen. There was a white blank bar at the top of the screen, kind of like an Internet search engine with a cursor waiting for me to tell it what to type. Out of curiosity I typed in the word K-PAX.

A list of about forty-million entries appeared on the screen, and I doubted I'd live long enough to get to the bottom of it as I used the down scroll button. I found an entry from a traveler on his first encounter with a dremer. It was terribly translated, and it read more like an Internet post filled with terrible grammar and jargon, but I understood it well enough. I shall try to translate it for the readers below:

Star log entry 334201.SovaEve

The creature calls herself sot. Sot claims she has used a beam of light to bring her from a planet in the western spiral of the Galaxy called K-PAX. At first sot seemed reasonable enough and she took me to many of the destinations on my list without me having to spend a single yark on ship fuel and travel expenses.

Sot is a devoted herbivore and passes judgment on anyone who eats meat. This did not bother me at first but she's getting to the point where she is angering several high ranking officials on many planets. I am growing irritated and gradually annoyed with the way she forces her philosophy upon people, whether they ask for it or not.

I couldn't help but break out laughing. Prot seemed confused, and I wondered if I should explain it or not.

"You dremers aren't very popular are you?" I asked, pointing out the entry.

Prot seemed indignant for the first time in his life.

"No. We aren't."

"Oh, don't take it personally prot. I think it's funny that your people are so consistent."

"The Elcevian in this article was the last of a dying race," prot said, bordering on angry. "Perhaps if they had listened to our philosophy they'd be alive now."

"Hey, is your report in here?" I asked, curious.

"As a matter of fact it is. But you won't find it under my name. Just type in B-TIK."

I did so and was surprised to see all of prot's report in perfect English. I remembered it of course because we had a translated copy of the report on file at MPI. (assuming they didn't pawn that off for cash as well)

"They even have entries about Earth too," I noticed. I read some of them and was a little disappointed. "We're obsessed with little digital watches huh?"

Prot gave me a knowing grin. I looked at my wrist and dropped the matter entirely.

"All right prot, you want me to learn this stuff myself. Here I go."

I asked about the vogons. I learned pretty much what prot all ready told me, including their penchant for poetry, which is known throughout the galaxy for its life threatening nature. These people would have been right at home on Ward 4. In fact MPI would need a whole new ward for these creatures.

With that in mind, let's be glad that my bladder was completely empty by now. Because when the door to our room whooshed open, the room would have been a wading pool.