"Who are you and what are you doing on this planet?" Helo asked.
"Zathras work here. You work up there, Zathras work down here. You dress like that, Zathras dress like this", he explained, pointing with his fingers.
"I mean, how did you get here?" Helo wanted to know.
"Great war. Terrible war. Much killings. Everyone fighting. A great darkness. But, great hope of peace. Need place. Place to gather, to fight, to organize...to help save galaxy on the side of light. So they tell me. We pulled space station through time to save us all. But we went too far. Much too far. When Zathras woke up, the One was gone. Poor Zahtras was alone on space station. Zathras was searching for the One, but not finding him, no."
"Where is that space station you are talking about?" Helo asked.
"Zathras not knows. Much time has passed. Might be gone now. Anyway, when Zathras did not find the One, Zathras left space station. Zathras needed new work, needed new purpose, you know? Zathras is good worker, can do many things. Zathras is good with hands, fix things, build things. Zathras was traveling in shuttle for many many days until finding civilization.
"So you ended up here?"
"Yes, yes. After traveling many more days on space ship, Zathras come here. Zathras working here for long time. Then they said business is closed, everybody go to sleep. So Zathras went to sleep for long, long, time. But now Zathras is awake"
Back on the surface, Slartibartfast had walked away a short distance from the group of colonials, but was still within earshot. He gestured to Racetrack to follow him. "You must come with me. Great things are afoot", he said.
Racetrack hesitated. She was curious, and wanted to find out what the crazy old man was up to, but she needed to be back on the Pegasus in several hours to report her findings. It was clear to her that he was insane, but she hoped he would lead her to his ship. He didn't seem to be dangerous, though. She finally began to walk in his direction and the rest of her team started to follow her.
"There is only enough room in the capsule for the two of us. I'm afraid they will have to stay behind."
"It's okay. I can take care of myself", she said to Skulls and the marines.
"Are you sure?" Skulls asked.
She nodded.
"Come. Come now, or you will be late"
"Late for what?"
"What is your name, young lady?"
"Edmundson, Margaret Edmundson
"Late, as in the late Edmundson, Margaret Edmundson"
Racetrack looked at him bewildered.
"It's a sort of threat. I've never been good at them myself, but I've been told they can be terribly effective. There was a sphere with two seats and a bunch of controls. The top half of the sphere was made of a transparent material. Slartibartfast pushed a button and the canopy of the sphere opened slowly. Both climbed into the sphere and he pushed some buttons. The sphere began to hum and spun around slowly.
She wondered if there were any hallucinogenic drugs on this planet.
"Where are we going?" Racetrack asked as she climbed into the sphere.
"We are going deep into the bowels of the planet where even now our race is being revived from its five million year old slumber. Magrathea awakes", Slartibartfast said as the canopy closed again. Then the sphere took of floating away, with both of them inside, while Racetrack's surface team looked on. The sphere moved into a hole in the ground and through a long tunnel.
Racetrack no longer believed that Slartibartfast was a survivor of a crashed ship from the Colonies. With what she has seen and heard so far she started to believe that he was in fact from Kobol. Even though the scriptures never mentioned that, it could have been possible that some Kobolians have settled here before the founding of the Twelve Colonies. She tried to put the pieces together in her head. That would explain the advanced technology. And maybe Slartibartfast and his people had spent a long time in cryo sleep, but certainly not five million years. Maybe somewhat closer to five thousand. Still the idea of creating planets on an industrial scale seemed absurd.
"We are now deep in the heart of Magrathea, young lady", Slartibartfast announced.
The sphere began to spin again.
"I think I should warn you that the chamber we're about to enter into does not literally exist within our planet. It is simply the gateway to a vast tract of hyperspace. It may disturb you." he cautioned.
What was disturbing Racetrack was the fact that Slartibartfast was spouting more and more incoherent nonsense and she had no idea how to get back to her raptor if he finally lost his mind completely.
"It scares the willies out of me. Hold tight." Slartibartfast said.
The sphere accelerated and then seemed to make an FTL jump.
They ended up what appeared to be an enormous, completely enclosed space dock. It was brightly illuminated.
"Welcome to our factory floor. This is where we make most of our planets, you see." Slartibartfast announced.
"You mean you're starting the whole thing up again?" she asked, figuring it was best to play along. Her grandfather had suffered from dementia and he always told crazy stories shortly before he died. When she had visited him in the nursing home, she always played along thinking it would upset him if she didn't.
"Good heavens, no. The galaxy isn't nearly rich enough to afford us yet. Now we have been awakened to perform just one extraordinary function for our very special clients from another galaxy. It may interest you. There, in the distance in front of us", he explained, pointing add a strangely shaped object.
A very odd looking planet came into view. It had an odd, almost egg like shape and odd colors. Pretty much everything about that planet seemed off.
"What is this?"
"This is the planet Melmac, one of the most heavily customized planets we ever built. Actually, what you see here is a copy being built from our original blueprints." Slartibartfast explained.
"What happened to the original?" Racetrack asked.
"After the attempted demolition of the planet Earth had failed, another constructor fleet was sent to finish the job, but the coordinates that had been entered were in the New Galactic Coordinate System (NGCS), which uses the galactic core as point of origin. The navigational computers of the Vogon constructor ships were still using the outdated Betelgeusian System (BS), which had the former galactic president's home world as point of origin, which..."
"Wait, you mentioned Earth. What happened to Earth? Can you help us get there?" Racetrack interrupted. She didn't know how useful this information could be, since she was convinced the man was completely insane, but she could try anyway.
"You see, a Vogon constructor fleet had been sent out a few decades ago to demolish Earth to make way for a hyperspace bypass. After what was a reported as an encounter with a self-proclaimed protector of Earth, only one ship of the whole fleet returned and Earth remained intact.", he explained.
"Can you show me Earth on a star chart in relation to other worlds?" Racetrack asked.
"What do you want on Earth, anyway? It is a rather dull place now, coincidentally inhabited by people quite similar to yourself." Slartibartfast landed the sphere on a platform at the end of the dock and opened the canopy.
"My people have been looking for Earth for almost a year since our home worlds were destroyed by the Cylons.
"Your home worlds? The 12 Colonies of Kobol, as you call them? I was most upset when I heard of their destruction. It's quite a shame, actually. Five more minutes and it all would not have mattered so much."
"Not have mattered? Billions of people died! And you say it wouldn't have mattered?" Racetrack got angry at his callousness.
"They were destroyed five minutes before the completion of the purpose for which they were built."
Slartibartfast got out of the sphere and walked down a flight of stairs, followed by Racetrack. They entered what appeared to be Slartibartfast's laboratory.
"A diode blew in one of the life support computers When we came to revive our cleaning staff, we discovered they had been dead for 30,000 years", he explained the messy state of his lab.
"Who is going to clear away the bodies, that's what no one seems to have an answer for.", he went on.
Slartibartfast explained to Racetrack how Earth was built as supercomputer to calculate the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything.
"After several millennia we realized that Earth's calculations were becoming unstable with that Gallifreyan time lord constantly mucking about", Slartibartfast explained.
Racetrack stared at him in disbelief. She had no idea what a time lord was.
"All the time travel, going back and forth in history and changing things was introducing new variables to Earth's computations. Variables the computer had never been programmed to take into account, such as people dying before they were born, others meeting their older selves, various other time paradoxes, etc., you name it.", he kept explaining.
"Without the proper exception handling routines, the program had been corrupted within a few thousand years to the point that it would produce complete nonsense as a result", he continued.
"Instead of rebooting Earth, it had been decided to start over from scratch. With advances in parallel computing it would only take a few thousand years instead of 10 Million, but 12 planet sized computers had been necessary. The twelve colonies were built for parallel processing and for backup. Exception handling routines were written into the program to deal with any temporal interference caused by time travel." Slartibartfast rambled on.
"Five minutes before they were done computing, they were nuked by the Cylons. They were not outright destroyed, but rendered useless as computers. Unfortunately the clients that had commissioned Earth as well as the 12 Colonies are unable to afford a replacement", he finished.
"You mean the Lords of Kobol?" she asked.
"If you want to call them that. Anyway, we will have to refurbish the colonies and reboot the program." he responded.
"And what about Earth?" Racetrack wanted to know.
"Unfortunately, Earth is off limits to us and to our clients, thanks to a certain time lord who had declared himself its protector." Slartibartfast explained.
"Can't you use that strange planet we saw earlier as a computer?" she suggested.
"Heavens, no. This is a completely different project, you know? See, the original planet Melmac was mistaken for Earth and demolished due to a navigational error, about seven years after the original attempt to demolish Earth. Hell, Melmac is not even in the same galaxy. Those Vogons and their stubbornness! Anyway, several million Melmacians survived on starships and on Melmac's colonies. They filed a lawsuit, and after 20 years the court ruled in their favor, deciding that an identical replacement for Melmac shall be built, with the Vogons covering the expenses. "
Racetrack wanted to ask another question, when Zathras walked in with Helo and his team.
"Ah, Zathras, there you are. Have you completed the repairs on the weather control system?"
"No, Zathras did not finish repairs. Zathras had wrong tool. Zathras went to get right tool when meeting these people in corridor", Zathras explained, pointing at the visitors.
Helo and Racetrack decided to spend the remaining time on the surface attempting to get as much information out of Slartibartfast and Zathras as possible and let their superiors try to sort out fact from fiction later. Both often wondered if there were any facts at all, or if Slartibartfast made it all up as he went on. Zathras was not very useful at all, since most of his remarks were very cryptic and he seemed to have problems with the language spoken by the Colonials.
Slartibartfast promised to provide more information, such as the location of Earth and a detailed history of the galaxy in the near future, at a later meeting with the leaders of the Colonials.
When the time allocated for the surface exploration mission had elapsed, all teams except a few marines guarding the recently captured missile site returned to the Pegasus for their debriefing. Slartibartfast monitored the fleet in orbit and the raptors launching from the surface. As soon as the last raptor had taken off, he approached Zathras.
"Zathras, we must relocate the planet before they return. You know what to do", Slartibartfast told him.
"Yes, yes, Zathras knows. Zathras will do.", Zathras said.
"You also know that you won't be able to come back to Magrathea?" Slartibartfast reminded him.
"Yes, Zathras knows, but Zathras will go anyway. Zathras will do what Zathras is being told." Zathras said obediently.
"You must hurry. We don't have much time", Slartibartfast told him as Zathras scuttled out the door.
Zathras, now wearing a heavy fur coat, climbed down the ladder. It was very cold there. The further he went down, the colder it got. He finally reached a chamber with walls of rough-hewn stone. A thin layer of ice crystals was covering the floor, walls, and ceiling. The ceiling was supported by a rough rock column adorned with hieroglyphs. An elaborate wooden wheel held together with metal bindings was sticking out of one of the walls. Zathras rubbed his hands together and began turning the wheel counter clockwise. It was stuck at first and he had to wiggle it back and forth a bit, but then it moved.
The Pegasus had just recovered the Raptors with the survey teams, as suddenly the planet Magrathea disappeared in a flash of light.
When Zathras opened his eyes, he found himself laying on his back in the hot sand. Not one sun, but two were beating down mercilessly on the desert. Zathras got up and took off his fur coat. "Not good, no. Zathras does not like hot weather."