CHAPTER 5

"No," the waitress said to Fenchurch. "I'm sorry, we don't have any reservations for an Arthur Dent here, honey." Fenchurch inhaled deeply, and then let out a very long sigh. It was a sigh that practically deflated her entire body. She had spent days trying to get here, stowing away on different ships, sneaking around, worried she'd be caught at any moment... and now, to find out that it had all been for nothing!

"Is there anything else I can do for you?" asked the head waitress.

Fenchurch pulled the clam out of her pocket, "Sparky, he's not here. What should we do now?"

"You could try eating," the clam replied.

"What?"

"You're in a restaurant, Boss. Eat."

She lowered her voice to address her guru/clam, "I'm not sure if we have that kind of money."

But Slartibartfast was standing nearby. He held up a friendly hand and said, "It's all right, Earth woman. I can afford a simple restaurant bill for two."

Fenchurch turned back to the waitress, "Right. Er, table for two, please."

"Sure," the waitress said happily, grabbing a couple of menus. "This way, please." She lead them into the main part of the restaurant. They followed in the wake of her perfume which was almost a visible cloud surrounding the waitress.

They arrived at their table. The waitress eyed Slartibartfast as he sat down. She looked at his long white beard the way most females would look at a reproductive organ, "Say, are you two together?"

"Only in the sense that all temporal paradoxes have no true beginning and not true ending. And therefore can there truly be a middle? A now? To be together, we would have to first be. And for us to be, there would have to be a present... a middle. And as we are both the beginning and the end of the same temporal paradox, awaiting the arrival of the other end and the other beginning, well, you may begin to see our problem." He held out his hands in resignation of the problem.

The waitress said, "Oh," very slowly, in the way that less intelligent people do when they suddenly realise that they're in the presence of somebody who, by contrast, would make them appear quite stupid... unless they made a hasty retreat. "Well, let me know when you're ready to order." And she made a hasty retreat.

Fenchurch couldn't stop herself from gawping at everything around her. The restaurant was big... huge... enormous. It was set up to accommodate what looked to be billions of diners at a time. Every race seemed to be there. Belcerebons, Dentrassis, Vogons, Jatravartids, and others she'd never heard of, or could never have imagined. She even spotted some celebrities. Nearby was the famous Oolon Colluphid, and also Grunthos the Flatulent. Also nearby, surrounded by a collection of his groupies was Seemuss Tong, the sampronious wanker. And then she spotted Roodfarthing of Gwallalong, the founder of six dimensional Feng shui.

She even noticed Wowbagger, the Infinitely Prolonged in the crowd, the immortal being who had undertaken the task of insulting everyone in the universe. She had met him recently. He had awaken her as she slept fitfully in spite of the night sounds in her little corner of the balcony café. At first he had simply asked her her name. She woke up instantly. She suddenly got excited! This person knew her! He even had a clipboard! That must mean he was an official of some kind! That must mean he was from some charity organization that helped feeble life forms across the galaxy to get their lives back together! But when she confirmed that Fenchurch was in fact her name, all that he actually said to her was, "You're a painful and bleeding hemorrhoid on the butt of life. Now go back to sleep." And he left.

She glared at him now from across the restaurant. And suddenly she was feeling unhappy again. She felt utterly beaten. She had tried not to get her hopes up. But of course how could she not?

Slartibartfast felt sorry for the poor Earth woman sitting in front of him. He talked to her briefly about how he had also known Dentarthurdent, which was quite improbable, but not impossible. She asked him a lot of questions to try to glean from him anything she might have missed when she had known him. Any new piece of knowledge that she could keep with her in that special place in her heart labeled "Arthur Dent." So he told her about Magrathea, about the mice, about Krikkit. And she listened to all of it with a wistful smile on her face.

"I know what will cheer you up," Slartibartfast said when they had finished discussing Arthur. "It seems that there was this bar. And in walked a Zylbanian Tree Sloth."

Fenchurch waited for the rest of the story. But Slartibartfast just sat there looking at her.

Finally he gave up and began looking idly around the rest of the restaurant.

So she eventually had to ask, "Then what happened?"

"I'm sorry?"

"What happened when this Zylbanian Tree Sloth walked into the bar?"

"Well, nothing. Zylbanian Tree Sloths don't walk. And if they did, they wouldn't have any business in a bar. They are, er, teetotalers, I believe is the word." Fenchurch stared at him with a puzzled frown. So he bowed his head apologetically, "It's a sort of joke, you see. I'm sorry, Earth woman. But apparently I'm not terribly good at telling jokes. But as I recall, the humour does in fact lie in the fact that Zylbanian Tree Sloths don't..."

Fenchuch finished for him, "Don't walk." She smiled politely.

Slartibartfast went on, "And even if they did walk, they wouldn't have any business in a bar," he repeated, smiling quietly to himself.

He was a nice old man, so she tried not to hurt his feelings. "Yes, well, I can see how that would be very amusing."

Then the host arrived on the stage. He bounded out into the middle of the restaurant with the flourish and energy of a professional extrovert. He was a natural performer. He was familiar to most people across the whole of the universe, for he was the host of both the Big Bang Burger Bar, the Restaurant at the Beginning of the Universe, and also of the equally famous catering venture: Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen! (What he actually said was, "Good evening, Qualzooliwaliwankah," which was from the Narglefargle language. Translated literally it meant, "unisexuals of any and all species, males of any and all species, females of any and all species, tri-sexuals of any and all species, quadro-sexuals of any and all species," and so on up to hyper-omni-quantum-milisexuals [The video pornography of which was usually prohibitively expensive, because by necessity, it always required a "cast of millions."]. But through the help of the Babel Fish, Fenchurch heard it as simply, "ladies and gentlemen.") My name is Max Quardlepleen and I will by your host for tonight's explosive show; the birth of History itself!" Everyone applauded at that point. They dinners goggled at each other, clearly impressed with what was about to happen before their eyes, or whatever other sensory organs they used. "So, ladies and gentlemen, we approach the moment. Anticipation is in the air. As we hold our collective breath, the force-shielded dome above us fades into transparency revealing... nothing. Void. Emptiness. Oblivion. Absolutely nothing at all. No time. And not even space. For this is where it all begins. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the start of everything. The original cause.

"If you've ever wondered where to place blame... place it here. Because we've all heard how so-and-so is upset because of this. And this happened because of that. And that happened because... and so on and so on back and back until... until here. So if you want to blame anyone for anything, look out there, for this is where it all begins. Except of course there doesn't seem to be anyone to blame... yet." They applauded again.

And being the master of the crowd that he imagined himself to be, he took the audience into a suddenly serious mood. "And , you know, blaming each other isn't going to get us anywhere. I really think that it might be the time to make that fresh start we all keep putting off. Think of it; a new beginning. I'm sure many of you would love to start all over again. And this would seem to be the perfect opportunity. Because wouldn't it be just cosmic to start off a new part of our lives..." he paused, dramatically... "with a bang!" he said with a sudden shout and a grin. And the audience applauded dutifully. He was the man. And the audience were putty in his hands. It was only a pity that he himself wasn't going to take this opportunity to make a fresh start on his ego problem.

Max seemed to take a break in his routine and the relaxing background music started up again. Fenchurch turned back to her menu. It was printed on slightly psychic paper, and was therefore legible to anyone from any culture, provided they actually had a written form of language. There were other menus available for those whose dominant form of communication was smell; for example like the Loogle people from the planet Looglog Eleven. There was also a touch menu for races such as the Virgle-Poppers. There was the very popular taste version of the menu for species whose primary sense was taste, or indeed for anybody who wanted a quick sample of the foods they were ordering. There was also an audio version of the menu, and even the sexual intercourse version for the people of Eroticon 6. (For which a private booth was required for privacy of checking the menu. Not that the people of Eroticon 6 were embarrassed by this. For them it was perfectly normal. It was only for the consideration of other more prudish life forms who were embarrassed being near others who were performing sex acts on a restaurant menu.)

And then Fenchurch found something that caught her eye: the Algolian Zylbatburger. In fact she had only ever heard of the Algolian Zylbatburger before, and how tastebud-shatteringly delicious it was. In fact the rumours had been so wild, about how the burger actually stimulated a person's endorphins so that the experience verges on the metaphysical, that she was almost under the impression that people had simply been making it up. But here it was on the menu.

So when the waitress arrived a few moments later, and Fenchurch said as casually as she could, "I think I'll try that Algolian Zylbatburger," both the waitress and Slartibartfast stared at her. "Unless you don't recommend it," she added hesitantly.

The waitress wrote it down on her pad with a resigned twist of the head, "Whatever you want, honey. You just didn't strike me as the type." The waitress turned to Slartibartfast and took his order.

When the waitress had gone a moment later, Fenchurch leaned closer to Slartibartfast, "Should I have ordered that? You both seemed to react so strongly."

"Oh, no, that's fine. In fact if I were younger I might be joining you." And he turned to glance idly around the restaurant.

Fenchurch glanced up at the blank sky above them. It was totally black. Apparently the universe hadn't started yet. She turned back to Slartibartfast and asked, "So how do you come by a name like Slartibartfast anyway?"

"Oh, it's not so bad really... once you get used to it. In fact my parents were originally going to call me Phartiphukborls." And suddenly, for the first time in her life, Fenchurch didn't feel so bad about her own name.

And then another Fenchurch and Slartibartfast came up to them. The other Slartibartfast was dressed in the same long white robes, but the other Fenchurch was wearing only a large towel wrapped around her chest and tucked under her arms as though she had just gotten out of the bath.

The Slartibartfast sitting at the table seemed too casual about this. He looked up casually at his earlier self and said, "Can I help you?"

"I'm afraid we've got to swap Fenchurches. I've only just met this one," the standing Slartibartfast said, pointing to the Fenchurch wrapped in the towel. "And since you're my future self, you are clearly already acquainted with the young lady." He then turned to the seated and fully clothed Fenchurch, "And you, I take it, have only just met the other me?"

"Well... yes."

"Splendid. So you can come with me, and your other self here can stay here with the other me."

The seated and clothed Fenchurch looked to the standing and towel-clad Fenchurch, "You're from my future?"

"Yes."

"Will it be all right?"

"Yes, of course. In fact it's urgent that you go right now."

"Well, it's not really urgent," the standing Slartibartfast said.

"Yes, it is," said the towel-clad Fenchurch. She then turned to her seated other self, "Trust me. Off you go."

The seated Fenchurch held up her hands and let them slap down onto her thighs in resignation, "All right." She kept telling herself lately that it didn't matter if things in her life actually made sense anymore. And things hadn't make any sort of sense ever since she had left Earth. She had long ago decided that the best way to react to anything is simply to go with the flow, no matter how confusing. Things were still slightly annoying from time to time, but she simply tried to accept it anyway. She considered herself a sort of space-Taoist. Or should that be a space-confusionist? She got up, and let her other self sit down in the chair she had just vacated.

"Come on, then," the standing Slartibartfast said. And she followed him.

"Why is it so urgent I go with you?" she asked him as they walked past the other tables.

"Actually, I've no idea why your other self said that," he had to admit. As they continued to walk through the restaurant, Slartibartfast began speaking, "So anyway, I suppose one of my biggest inspirations was the story of the very first time traveler. She was a woman called Chief Temporalogist Zarlafah. She built the very first time machine. And in order to test it, she went forwards in time one hundred years. It transpired that this was to a period in time when time travel was more or less commonplace. But unfortunately it was also highly regulated at that point. Of course everyone knew that she was coming, she was the founder of time travel after all. So when she arrived, there was a huge welcoming committee. People had welcome signs. They wore those t-shirt things with her likeness on them. And unfortunately the time police were waiting there too. And so after making a speech and signing some autographs, she was quietly taken away and arrested for unlicensed operation of a time machine."

Slartibartfast held up a single finger, "Now... here's the problem. Since she was now arrested that therefore was unable to make it back to her own time, her research staff didn't know if they had got their sums right or not. So they abandoned their work and started again from scratch, thus putting time travel back a further fifty years, and therefore there wasn't a time police by the time Zarlafah arrived in the future. And so she was never arrested. And since she was never arrested, she did successfully go back to her own time and put things back on track. And since things were back on track, the time police did exist and were waiting for her after all. And so she was arrested. And so on."

Fenchurch continued to walk beside the old man in silence as they left the restaurant and went out into the spaceship carpark. She was quietly assuming that she was simply missing some obvious point. It was usually a safe assumption, she found. But she winced as she tried to work out what he had just said and why. And not one bit of it clicked into place in her brain as being actually relevant. So finally she had to ask, "What?"

"The answer to your question," he said simply.

"But I never asked you a question. Certainly never one where that could be the answer."

"Oh, really? Didn't you ask me about my inspirations?"

"No. But it was an interesting story."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Well, perhaps you will ask me some day."