First of all I would like to apologise for the delay here! I know I've left this a ridiculously long time, but I hope you enjoy it (if you haven't stopped using Fanfiction/given up on this in disgust/emigrated in the time since I updated this…). Thanks to Nimbus Llewelyn for beta-ing.
"Holy Zarquon singing fish," said Ford, blinking.
There was a pause.
"What?" queried Mirana eventually.
"Oh, never mind," said Arthur, dismissively. "He's drunk."
"How do you know Zaphod is your father?" asked Ford, apparently recovering.
"Well, when you've got two heads, three arms and, so I've been told, an enormous ego, it's not too hard to work out who the anonymous parent is." Mirana put one of her hands on her hip – the others were still holding her drinks. "So, can you take me to see him?"
Arthur glanced at Ford, who shrugged, still too drunk to properly understand what was happening.
"I suppose so," he hazarded.
"Good." Mirana put one of her glasses down. "Are you ready?"
Ford sighed and downed the unpleasantly warm dregs of his Gargleblaster. Mirana thrust her other gin at Arthur, who looked slightly bewildered.
"Drink up," she prompted. "We don't have much time."
"What are you talking about? We've got plenty of time."
"You might have, but I'm due back at the Hitch-hiker building in an hour."
"The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy building?" said Ford. "Where is that now?"
"It's on Megalamore Beta. I'm the chief foreign correspondent for Betelgeuse and the Pleiades," she answered. "Are you coming?"
Arthur and Ford reluctantly followed her out of the club into the warm Megalamore night. Judging from the sounds coming from the beach to their left, the Brotherhood of the Incredible Giant Newt were having their annual celebration, and Ford was struck by a sudden desire to convert.
"I wonder if their parties are open…" he said, watching as a group of girls staggered away from the main party.
"We don't have any time for that," insisted Mirana.
"Besides, this is our ship," added Arthur.
The ship in front of them was a sleek silver craft with elegant fins which practically exuded speed. Mirana raised an eyebrow, looking impressed.
"Nice ship," she commented.
"It is, but unfortunately it doesn't belong to us. Those are ours," corrected Ford, nodding to two disappointingly grey spacepods behind the one Mirana had seen.
"Oh."
"Well, see you at the Heart of Gold," said Arthur cheerily, getting into the closest pod.
"You're just leaving us?" protested Ford and Mirana simultaneously.
"Sorry," responded Arthur with a shrug.
He shut the door behind him and – after a few false starts – managed to get the spacepod into gear and up into the sky. Ford swore incoherently and looked longingly back at the club. He could do with another Pan-Galactic Gargleblaster; or failing that, a bottle of Janx Spirit and a comfortable wall to slump against.
"Don't just stand there, some of us have appointments," snapped Mirana, tapping her foot impatiently.
They climbed into the remaining spacepod and – after accidentally putting into reverse and almost crashing into a much larger ship behind them – managed to take off. They didn't say a word to each other on the way to the Heart of Gold; Mirana was staring out of the window, obviously wondering what was about to happen and Ford had descended from blissful drunken indifference into a sullen stupor, something which wasn't improved by the prospect of going back to a ship with no girls and sadly depleted stocks of alcohol.
When they landed on the Heart of Gold they disembarked and walked up to the bridge in unbroken silence. Well, almost unbroken.
"It is my pleasure to open for you, and my satisfaction to close again with the knowledge of a job well done," hummed the first door they arrived at.
"Oh, zark off!" swore Ford, kicking at it as he walked through. It made a quiet, contented noise which annoyed him even more.
"You've got talking doors?" said Marina, sounding slightly disbelieving. "That's so…lame. I thought this was supposed to be the cutting edge of space travel!"
Ford glared at her.
"I happen to like them," he lied.
"Then why did you just tell that one to zark off?" challenged Mirana.
"Oh Zarquon," groaned Ford. "I'd rather be with Marvin."
"I very much doubt that," droned a dreary electronic voice. Marvin appeared in the corridor in front of them – he had apparently been waiting for somebody to come along so he could come out and depress them.
"Oh, thank God. Marvin, this is Mirana, Zaphod's daughter. Mirana, this is Marvin the Paranoid Android, he is permanently depressed and will not respond to any attempts to cheer him up at all. Oh good, here we are. Excuse me, I'm just going to go and get slightly drunker in a corner somewhere. Please don't hesitate to leave, Mirana. And Marvin?"
"Yes?" intoned the robot dully.
"I hope you have an utterly miserable day."
"Don't worry, I will."
With that, Ford walked briskly down the passage, verbally abusing several more doors on the way. Marvin looked up at Mirana, eyes glowing dismally.
"Please don't ask me how I'm feeling," he requested.
"I wasn't intending to."
"You were. Everyone does. It's just so depressing. Excuse me, I'm just going to go and stick my head in a bucket of water. Don't mind me. You weren't going to anyway, were you?"
"Well-"
"Life? Don't talk to me about life."
"I didn't-"
But Marvin was already clanking down the corridor to her right, leaving Mirana outside the door to the bridge. Making a rude gesture at the robot's retreating form, she took a deep breath and opened the door.
"Thank you for making a simple door very happy," declared the door, humming softly to itself as it shut.
Zaphod Beeblebrox swore at it without thinking about why the door would be making a noise at all and didn't turn around. This meant that his first warning that his daughter had entered the room was slightly nervous-sounding voice saying:
"Dad?"
"Uh, what?" he responded, still not looking away from the computer screen he was trying to make sense of.
Trillian was discreetly trying to get his attention, but failing dismally as Zaphod had as much knowledge of subtlety as a cat had of quantum mechanics (which is very little, with the notable exception of Gregory, a small tabby cat belonging Erwin Schrödinger, who rapidly became accustomed to the nature of quantum after being locked in a box and occasionally gassed and poisoned until he finally managed to creep out of the window whilst his owner was having lunch).
Finally, Trillian gave in and took hold of one of his arms, turning him to face her.
"Zaphod!" she hissed. "Behind you!"
Zaphod turned around fully. An oddly familiar-looking teenage girl was standing by the door onto the bridge, looking nervous.
"Either that girl has two heads or I'm really drunk…" he mused.
"Of course she's got two heads, she's your zarking daughter!"
"Are you Zaphod Beeblebrox?" asked the mysterious girl, whilst Zaphod was reeling from the revelation.
"I think so," he hazarded.
"In that case; I'm your daughter. Mirana."
"I have a daughter?" marvelled Zaphod, who hadn't quite taken in Trillian's statement.
"Come on, Zaphod, Arthur just told you!" replied Trillian impatiently.
"He did?" Zaphod looked blank. "You should've said! I never listen to what the monkeyman says."
"I did say. Just now."
"Oh, well."
Trillian sighed heavily. Turning to Mirana, who was still hovering in the doorway, introduced herself.
"I'm Trillian Astra, and this is Zaphod Beeblebrox, although he doesn't seem to know that at the minute."
Mirana nodded slightly, her eyes still on her father. He looked back at her, apparently waiting for something.
"So, what do you want?" he asked eventually.
"What do you mean, what do I want? You're my father!"
"And?"
"And…well…"
There was an awkward silence.
"Hi guys, would you like some tension-relieving music?" offered Eddie cheerily.
"No!" snarled Trillian.
"Okay, okay!" responded Eddie, sounding rather hurt. "How about some calming images?"
"Now is not the time, computer," hissed Trillian.
Eddie sighed and began to hum tinnily to himself.
"Why should I want anything?" demanded Mirana.
"Why else would you have come?" responded Zaphod.
"I don't know, maybe I just wanted to finally meet my father! Don't you care about me at all? You haven't asked me about anything – what I've been doing, my life, my mother, anything! I'm your daughter, for zark's sake!"
There was another pause.
"So, what have you been doing? How's your life? How's your mother?" queried Zaphod, obviously thinking it would be better if he got all of the questions out of the way before he forgot them.
"I'm foreign correspondent for Betelgeuse and the Pleiades for the Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy."
"Really?" Zaphod looked thoughtful. "Hey, can you get me one of those free drinks cards?"
"Is that all you care about? Fine, I'm leaving! I have to go and work!' snapped Mirana.
She turned on her heel and stalked out. On the way the door thanked her and wished her a good day. She told it precisely what to do with itself in quite graphic detail and strode through it angrily.
"Hey! I'm President of the Galaxy, kid!" Zaphod called after her.
"I don't care!" shouted Mirana over her shoulder.
"Mirana, come back!" pleaded Trillian. "Mirana!"
Mirana kept walking until she reached the bay where the spacepods were parked. In a few minutes, a hatch in the belly of the Heart of Gold opened and, in the stolen pod, Mirana went back to Megalamore.
Thanks!
