The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (19 page)

“Who are you?” said Lunkwill, rising angrily from his seat. “What do you want?”

“I am Majikthise!” announced the older one.

“And I demand that I am Vroomfondel!” shouted the younger one.

Majikthise turned on Vroomfondel. “It’s all right,” he explained angrily, “you don’t need to demand that.”

“All right!” bawled Vroomfondel, banging on a nearby desk. “I am Vroomfondel, and that is
not
a demand, that is a solid
fact!
What we demand is solid
facts!”

“No, we don’t!” exclaimed Majikthise in irritation. “That is precisely what we don’t demand!”

Scarcely pausing for breath, Vroomfondel shouted, “We
don’t
demand solid facts! What we demand is a total
absence
of solid facts. I demand that I may or may not be Vroomfondel!”

“But who the devil are you?” exclaimed an outraged Fook.

“We,” said Majikthise, “are Philosophers.”

“Though we may not be,” said Vroomfondel, waving a warning finger at the programmers.

“Yes, we
are,”
insisted Majikthise. “We are quite definitely here as representatives of the Amalgamated Union of Philosophers, Sages, Luminaries and Other Thinking Persons, and we want this machine off, and we want it off
now!”

“What’s the problem?” said Lunkwill.

“I’ll tell you what the problem is, mate,” said Majikthise, “demarcation, that’s the problem!”

“We demand,” yelled Vroomfondel, “that demarcation may or may not be the problem!”

“You just let the machines get on with the adding up,” warned Majikthise, “and we’ll take care of the eternal verities, thank you very much. You want to check your legal position, you do, mate. Under law the Quest for Ultimate Truth is quite clearly the inalienable prerogative of your working thinkers. Any bloody machine goes and actually
finds
it and
we’re straight out of a job, aren’t we? I mean, what’s the use of our sitting up half the night arguing that there may or may not be a God if this machine only goes and gives you his bleeding phone number the next morning?”

“That’s right,” shouted Vroomfondel, “we demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!”

Suddenly a stentorian voice boomed across the room.

“Might I make an observation at this point?” inquired Deep Thought.

“We’ll go on strike!” yelled Vroomfondel.

“That’s right!” agreed Majikthise. “You’ll have a national Philosophers’ strike on your hands!”

The hum level in the room suddenly increased as several ancillary bass driver units, mounted in sedately carved and varnished cabinet speakers around the room, cut in to give Deep Thought’s voice a little more power.

“All I wanted to say,” bellowed the computer, “is that my circuits are now irrevocably committed to calculating the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.” He paused and satisfied himself that he now had everyone’s attention, before continuing more quietly. “But the program will take me a little while to run.”

Fook glanced impatiently at his watch.

“How long?” he said.

“Seven and half million years,” said Deep Thought.

Lunkwill and Fook blinked at each other.

“Seven and a half million years!” they cried in chorus.

“Yes,” declaimed Deep Thought, “I said I’d have to think about it, didn’t I? And it occurs to me that running a program like this is bound to create an enormous amount of popular publicity for the whole area of philosophy in general. Everyone’s going to have their own theories about what answer I’m eventually going to come up with, and who better to capitalize on that media market than you yourselves? So long as you can keep disagreeing with each other violently enough and maligning each other in the popular press, and so long as you have clever agents, you can keep yourselves on the gravy train for life. How does that sound?”

The two philosophers gaped at him.

“Bloody hell,” said Majikthise, “now that is what I call thinking. Here, Vroomfondel, why do we never think of things like that?”

“Dunno,” said Vroomfondel in an awed whisper; “think our brains must be too highly trained, Majikthise.”

So saying, they turned on their heels and walked out of the door and into a life-style beyond their wildest dreams.

Y
es, very salutary,” said Arthur, after Slartibartfast had related the salient points of this story to him, “but I don’t understand what all this has got to do with the Earth and mice and things.” “That is but the first half of the story, Earthman,” said the old man. “If you would care to discover what happened seven and a half million years later, on the great day of the Answer, allow me to invite you to my study where you can experience the events yourself on our Sens-O-Tape records. That is, unless you would care to take a quick stroll on the surface of New Earth. It’s only half completed, I’m afraid—we haven’t even finished burying the artificial dinosaur skeletons in the crust yet, then we have the Tertiary and Quaternary Periods of the Cenozoic Era to lay down, and …”

“No, thank you,” said Arthur, “it wouldn’t be quite the same.”

“No,” said Slartibartfast, “it won’t be,” and he turned the aircar round and headed back toward the mind-numbing wall.

S
lartibartfast’s study was a total mess, like the results of an explosion in a public library. The old man frowned as they stepped in.

“Terribly unfortunate,” he said, “a diode blew in one of the life-support computers. When we tried to revive our cleaning staff we discovered they’d been dead for nearly thirty thousand years. Who’s going to clear away the bodies, that’s what I want to know. Look, why don’t you sit yourself down over there and let me plug you in?”

He gestured Arthur toward a chair which looked as if it had been made out of the rib cage of a stegosaurus.

“It was made out of the rib cage of a stegosaurus,” explained the old man as he pottered about fishing bits of wire out from under tottering piles of paper and drawing instruments. “Here,” he said, “hold these,” and passed a couple of stripped wire ends to Arthur.

The instant he took hold of them a bird flew straight through him.

He was suspended in midair and totally invisible to himself. Beneath him was a pretty tree-lined city square, and all around it as far as the eye could see were white concrete buildings of airy spacious design but somewhat the worse for wear—many were cracked and stained with rain. Today, however, the sun was shining, a fresh breeze danced lightly through the trees, and the odd sensation that all the buildings were quietly humming was probably caused by the fact that the square and all the streets around it were thronged with cheerful excited people. Somewhere a band was playing, brightly colored flags were fluttering in the breeze and the spirit of carnival was in the air.

Arthur felt extraordinarily lonely stuck up in the air above it all without so much as a body to his name, but before he had time to reflect on this a voice rang out across the square and called for everyone’s attention.

A man standing on a brightly dressed dais before the building which clearly dominated the square was addressing the crowd over a tannoy.

“O people who wait in the shadow of Deep Thought!” he cried out. “Honored Descendants of Vroomfondel and Majikthise, the Greatest and
Most Truly Interesting Pundits the Universe has ever known, the Time of Waiting is over!”

Wild cheers broke out among the crowd. Flags, streamers and wolf whistles sailed through the air. The narrower streets looked rather like centipedes rolled over on their backs and frantically waving their legs in the air.

“Seven and a half million years our race has waited for this Great and Hopefully Enlightening Day!” cried the cheerleader. “The Day of the Answer!”

Hurrahs burst from the ecstatic crowd.

“Never again,” cried the man, “never again will we wake up in the morning and think
Who am I? What is my purpose in life? Does it really, cosmically speaking
, matter
if I don’t get up and go to work?
For today we will finally learn once and for all the plain and simple answer to all these nagging little problems of Life, the Universe and Everything!”

As the crowd erupted once again, Arthur found himself gliding through the air and down toward one of the large stately windows on the first floor of the building behind the dais from which the speaker was addressing the crowd.

He experienced a moment’s panic as he sailed straight toward the window, which passed when a second or so later he found he had gone right through the solid glass without apparently touching it.

No one in the room remarked on his peculiar arrival, which is hardly surprising as he wasn’t there. He began to realize that the whole experience was merely a recorded projection which knocked six-track seventy-millimeter into a cocked hat.

The room was much as Slartibartfast had described it. In seven and a half million years it had been well looked after and cleaned regularly every century or so. The ultramahogany desk was worn at the edges, the carpet a little faded now, but the large computer terminal sat in sparkling glory on the desk’s leather top, as bright as if it had been constructed yesterday.

Two severely dressed men sat respectfully before the terminal and waited.

“The time is nearly upon us,” said one, and Arthur was surprised to see a word suddenly materialize in thin air just by the man’s neck. The word was
LOONQUAWL
, and it flashed a couple of times and then disappeared again. Before Arthur was able to assimilate this the other man spoke and the word
PHOUCHG
appeared by his neck.

“Seventy-five thousand generations ago, our ancestors set this program
in motion,” the second man said, “and in all that time we will be the first to hear the computer speak.”

“An awesome prospect, Phouchg,” agreed the first man, and Arthur suddenly realized he was watching a recording with subtitles.

“We are the ones who will hear,” said Phouchg, “the answer to the great question of Life …!”

“The Universe …!” said Loonquawl.

“And Everything …!”

“Shhh,” said Loonquawl with a slight gesture, “I think Deep Thought is preparing to speak!”

There was a moment’s expectant pause while panels slowly came to life on the front of the console. Lights flashed on and off experimentally and settled down into a businesslike pattern. A soft low hum came from the communication channel.

“Good morning,” said Deep Thought at last.

“Er …good morning, O Deep Thought,” said Loonquawl nervously, “do you have … er, that is …”

“An answer for you?” interrupted Deep Thought majestically. “Yes. I have.”

The two men shivered with expectancy. Their waiting had not been in vain.

“There really is one?” breathed Phouchg.

“There really is one,” confirmed Deep Thought.

“To Everything? To the great Question of Life, the Universe and Everything?”

“Yes.”

Both of the men had been trained for this moment, their lives had been a preparation for it, they had been selected at birth as those who would witness the answer, but even so they found themselves gasping and squirming like excited children.

“And you’re ready to give it to us?” urged Loonquawl.

“I am.”

“Now?”

“Now,” said Deep Thought.

They both licked their dry lips.

“Though I don’t think,” added Deep Thought, “that you’re going to like it.”

“Doesn’t matter!” said Phouchg. “We must know it! Now!”

“Now?” inquired Deep Thought.

“Yes! Now …”

“All right,” said the computer, and settled into silence again. The two men fidgeted. The tension was unbearable.

“You’re really not going to like it,” observed Deep Thought. “Tell us!”

“All right,” said Deep Thought. “The Answer to the Great Question …”

“Yes …!”

“Of Life, the Universe and Everything …” said Deep Thought.

“Yes …!”

“Is …” said Deep Thought, and paused.

“Yes …!”

“Is …”

“Yes …!!! …?”

“Forty-two,” said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.

I
t was a long time before anyone spoke.

Out of the corner of his eye Phouchg could see the sea of tense expectant faces down in the square outside.

“We’re going to get lynched, aren’t we?” he whispered.

“It was a tough assignment,” said Deep Thought mildly.

“Forty-two!” yelled Loonquawl. “Is that all you’ve got to show for seven and a half million years’ work?”

“I checked it very thoroughly,” said the computer, “and that quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you’ve never actually known what the question is.”

“But it was the Great Question! The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything,” howled Loonquawl.

“Yes,” said Deep Thought with the air of one who suffers fools gladly, “but what actually
is
it?”

A slow stupefied silence crept over the men as they stared at the computer and then at each other.

“Well, you know, it’s just Everything … everything …” offered Phouchg weakly.

“Exactly!” said Deep Thought. “So once you do know what the question actually is, you’ll know what the answer means.”

“Oh, terrific,” muttered Phouchg, flinging aside his notebook and wiping away a tiny tear.

“Look, all right, all right,” said Loonquawl, “can you just please
tell
us the question?”

“The Ultimate Question?”

“Yes!”

“Of Life, the Universe and Everything?”

“Yes!”

Deep Thought pondered for a moment.

“Tricky,” he said.

“But can you do it?” cried Loonquawl.

Deep Thought pondered this for another long moment.

Finally: “No,” he said firmly.

Both men collapsed onto their chairs in despair.

“But I’ll tell you who can,” said Deep Thought.

They both looked up sharply.

“Who? Tell us!”

Suddenly Arthur began to feel his apparently nonexistent scalp begin to crawl as he found himself moving slowly but inexorably forward toward the console, but it was only a dramatic zoom on the part of whoever had made the recording, he assumed.