And Another Thing... Part 14

'Okay. Sorry, I do realize that you have a lot of golden plankton b.a.l.l.s to churn out, and I know mead stains. Freeze your s.h.i.+rt, then the mark comes right out. Listen, I got someone here, a mortal. I just want the go-ahead to kill him.'

More abuse. Zaphod could easily catch the tone from ten feet below phone level.

'I know we don't... I am aware of policy... Of course I read the doc.u.ment... the bullet points anyway.'

Zaphod drifted away from the conversation, already impatient with a situation that did not feature him. As a child, Zaphod had been diagnosed with ADHDDAAADHD (ntm) ABT which stood for Always Dreaming His Dopey Days Away, Also Attention Deficit Hyperflatulence Disorder (not to mention) A Bit Thick. Even as an adult, Zaphod could not manage the condition because he could never remember what he suffered from.

A couple of Ds, he had told his pill guy on Eroticon VI, maybe an H maybe an H, and was prescribed ointment for DDH, which was Double Dose Haemorrhoids. Zaphod stopped using the ointment after a couple of days because he couldn't keep it down.

So even though Heimdall and Odin were discussing his immediate future and the amount of discomfort contained therein, Zaphod found himself distracted by the twinkly lights of Asgard. It was an amazing sight, even for one accustomed to the s.h.i.+ny s.h.i.+ny of wide, wonderful s.p.a.ce.

Size-wise, Asgard was no Megabrantis Delta, but what was there made a big impression. For a start, there was the whole encased in ice encased in ice thing, which cast a flickering silver-blue light show over the entire surface. The surface itself was littered with the kind of dramatic topographic features that would drive a Magrathean to industrial espionage: mighty gus.h.i.+ng rivers, high snow-peaked mountains and fjords as intricate as a twitterflitter's electrocardiogram readout. Glistening ice fields coexisted impossibly alongside tracts of golden corn, all bathed by sunrays that could not be traced back to any star. Towering castles breached the clouds, dragons coiled around their turrets. It was a dream world, if the dreamers were testosterone-fuelled males who were never forced to behave like adults. thing, which cast a flickering silver-blue light show over the entire surface. The surface itself was littered with the kind of dramatic topographic features that would drive a Magrathean to industrial espionage: mighty gus.h.i.+ng rivers, high snow-peaked mountains and fjords as intricate as a twitterflitter's electrocardiogram readout. Glistening ice fields coexisted impossibly alongside tracts of golden corn, all bathed by sunrays that could not be traced back to any star. Towering castles breached the clouds, dragons coiled around their turrets. It was a dream world, if the dreamers were testosterone-fuelled males who were never forced to behave like adults.

Heimdall was saying something.

'Hmm?' said Zaphod.

'I got the green light,' said the G.o.d, smiling happily.

'What green light? What do you want a green light for?'

'It's a saying. The green light means go.'

'Go where?'

'Nowhere. I'm not going anywhere.'

'Then why do you need a green light?'

Heimdall pinched his nose. 'Forth Sigurd fides till he comes to the dwelling of a mighty chief called Heimir; he had to wife a sister of Brynhild, who was known as Bekkhild, as she had bided at home, and learned woman's work, whereas Brynhild followed unto the wars, so was she called Brynhild.'

'I see,' said Zaphod, wondering if he might use the craziness as cover to nip across the bridge.

As if reading his mind, which he probably could, Heimdall blocked Zaphod's path with a ma.s.sive fur-trimmed boot.

'I told Odin it was you.'

Zaphod was suddenly a little more nervous than he had been. 'And what did he say?'

'He said that you were a well-known public figure, so to make your death confusing.'

'Confusing?'

Heimdall bent double, shaking Gjallarhorn to its original length.

'You're shaking your horn to its original length,' noted Zaphod.

'I'm going to summon the dragons.'

'So that they can kill me in a confusing way,' Zaphod surmised.

Heimdall's grin seemed wide as a crescent moon. 'That's right, Beetlepox. I'm going to instruct them to kill you by accident but make it look like murder.'

'Oh,' said Zaphod. 'What about the tasks? There must be a golden axe somewhere you guys need me to find.'

'You wanted one task,' said Heimdall. 'That's exactly what you're getting.'

Zaphod blew into his hands. 'Good. Great. Can we get on with it then? I am freezing. My spare neck hole really feels the cold, which incidentally is the t.i.tle of my next alb.u.m.'

'It's a simple task,' said Heimdall innocently. 'All you need to do is cross the bridge.'

Cross the bridge, Zaphod thought. That sounds familiar. Then again, 'bridge' is a common enough word. And often used in a metaphorical sense. That sounds familiar. Then again, 'bridge' is a common enough word. And often used in a metaphorical sense.

'Which bridge?'

'This bridge!' roared Heimdall, his beard quivering. 'This b.l.o.o.d.y bridge that you're standing on.'

'Okay. Just trying to get the details straight. Cross this bridge I'm standing on. Anything else?'

'There's a tube of false atmosphere, so you won't drift off. If you make the first wall, you need to climb it.'

I gotta climb that wall. Familiar. But the word 'wall' is even more common than 'bridge'.

'So, cross and climb. Got it. And no hidden tricks?'

'Apart from the dragons trying to tumble you into the abyss? No.'

Zaphod frowned. 'So the dragons are not friendly dragons, singing songs and stuff, like in the kiddy stories?'

'They do sing death dirges.'

'Really? What rhymes with "flay"?' A rare flash of perceptive wit from Zaphod at the worst possible moment.

'Oh, very good. You just cut ten seconds off your head start.'

Heimdall adopted a heroic stance, which is not easy when one is clad in a garish ski suit, but in fairness the G.o.d carried it off. He raised his horn and blew a long, undulating series of notes that sounded suspiciously like the old Betelgeusean nursery rhyme 'Arkle Schmarkle Sat on a Schmed', but with a semitone more implied violence.

Zaphod felt a sudden chill in the scar tissue where his second neck used to be. He turned on the spot where one of his silver heels until recently had twinkled and ran like blazes through the tube of false atmosphere across the so-called Rainbow Bridge.

Vogon Bureaucruiser Cla.s.s Hypers.p.a.ce s.h.i.+p, the Business End Business End Constant Mown sat in the hypers.p.a.ce cradle in his home office, s.h.i.+vering, as the Business End Business End lurched out of hypers.p.a.ce in much the same way as a drunken Betelgeusean reporter might lurch out of a convenient bush with an empty bladder. (The reporter being the one with the empty bladder not the bush, unless the bush happened to be a Howhi shrub, which expels its seed in a slightly acidic solution when its foliage detects moisture. In essence, you pee on it and it pees on you.) lurched out of hypers.p.a.ce in much the same way as a drunken Betelgeusean reporter might lurch out of a convenient bush with an empty bladder. (The reporter being the one with the empty bladder not the bush, unless the bush happened to be a Howhi shrub, which expels its seed in a slightly acidic solution when its foliage detects moisture. In essence, you pee on it and it pees on you.) Eight more jumps to go, thought Mown. And then we get to wipe out another species And then we get to wipe out another species.

And, in truth, the idea did not give him as much satisfaction as it should. Surely there was no greater pleasure for a Vogon than to close the file on an enforcement order, but Constant Mown was perhaps not as much of an utter b.a.s.t.a.r.d as his father liked to think. In fact, in recent months when Mown searched inside himself for that tough Vogon core necessary to carry out some of his more distasteful duties, instead of steel and kroompst kroompst he found sensitivity and even empathy. It was horrible, awful. How was a constant ever to become a prostetnic with wishy-washy emotions like those swilling around in his thinking gourd? he found sensitivity and even empathy. It was horrible, awful. How was a constant ever to become a prostetnic with wishy-washy emotions like those swilling around in his thinking gourd?

I don't want to be a prostetnic. I don't even want to be an enforcement bureaucrat.

Oh sure, Mown gave good Vogon on the bridge threw his little spaghetti arms around saluting Daddy, waxed euphoric about the Unnecessarily Painful Slow Death torpedoes but his blood pump wasn't in it.

I don't want to kill anyone, even with the right paperwork.

Mown had to take a few deep breaths before composing the next thought.

There are things more important than paperwork.

He said it aloud.

'There are things more important than paperwork!'

Suddenly there was bile in Mown's throat, but the little Vogon was so worked up that he couldn't enjoy it. Mown tumbled from the hypers.p.a.ce cradle and scrabbled along his bedside draining board until he found a drool cup to spit into.

That was better.

Had he really said that aloud? What was happening to him?

Mown lowered himself gently on to his cot, an act that would have surprised the h.e.l.l out of his s.h.i.+pmates. Vogons did not generally have the wherewithal to lower themselves gently on to anything. Plonking awkwardly or collapsing ignominiously were the main options open to the Vogon race. Getting up again was even worse than sitting down. Rising from anything lower than a bar stool generally involved a bruised coccyx, a complicated system of weights and pulleys and several pints of splutter. But Mown possessed something heretofore unheard of among the Vogons. Mown possessed a modic.u.m of grace.

Mown wiggled a couple of fingers beneath the mattress board and pulled out a small pink piece of plastic contraband. He slipped the item underneath a soft thigh and quorbled nervously for a few moments, building up the kroompst kroompst to bring it out into the open. to bring it out into the open.

'This is the last time,' he promised himself. 'One look, then I'll get rid of it. Never again. The absolute last time.'

Look at me, said the pink thing, warm through the fabric of his trews. Look at me and see yourself Look at me and see yourself.

Mown's fingers tip-tapped on the frame and then, with a sudden surge of courage, he grabbed the plastic handle and yanked it out.

The item was a plastic Barbie mirror, purchased in a cheapo knick-knack market on Port Brasta. Authentic Earth memorabilia. Mirrors were forbidden on-board s.h.i.+p, because Vogons got depressed enough without looking at their own mugs in polished gla.s.s.

Guide Note: Vogons survived through determined extrospection. Apart from disdainful dabblings in the poetic arts, most Vogons try to focus their attentions very much on other species in order to avoid dwelling on their own various physical and psychological shortcomings. Vogons rarely spend time in flotation tanks, they never meditate in steam lodges and they most certainly do not gaze at their misshapen warty faces in mirrors. The only race to ever have successfully perverted a Vogon planetary demolition order were the Tubavix of Sinnustra, who sent a reformatting screen virus to the Vogon fleet which turned all their monitors into mirrors. Five minutes after the virus had uploaded, the Vogon s.h.i.+ps turned their torpedoes on each other.

Mown looked at himself in the mirror and felt no revulsion whatsoever. In fact, he liked what he saw.

Oh my G.o.d, he thought. What's happening to me? What's happening to me?

Something had had happened to Mown. A few months previously, his block of breakfast gruel had been cross-contaminated with the tip of a toadstool mandarin tentacle, which released just enough entheogens into Mown's system to prompt him to acknowledge something he had already suspected. happened to Mown. A few months previously, his block of breakfast gruel had been cross-contaminated with the tip of a toadstool mandarin tentacle, which released just enough entheogens into Mown's system to prompt him to acknowledge something he had already suspected.

I do not hate myself.

This was a revolutionary, if not heretical, thought for a Vogon to construct, and would surely have had Mown expelled from the bureaucratic corps had he admitted to it on his psych test. If the bureaucratic corps had a psych test.

Constant Mown had been doing more than just having the thought lately.

'I do not hate myself,' he whispered to the mirror. 'In many ways I am not altogether too bad.'

And if Mown did not hate himself, what did he have to project on to the Universe? If not love, then certainly an affable, diluted version.

I like myself so maybe, perhaps, others could like me too.

'Not if I kill them first,' said Mown morosely to his own reflection.

It had pained him to see the Earthlings eradicated once; if it happened again, he might just come to hate himself.

Mown closed his fingers around the tiny mirror.

Why did I tell father about the colony?

But Mown knew the answer to this one.

I told him because it's common knowledge and he would have found out, then I would have been the one who didn't tell him. And without me, the Earthlings have no chance.

Mown smiled weakly at his reflection, then tucked the mirror under his mattress board.

There must be a way, he thought. A way to save the humans and not get myself flushed out of a torpedo tube A way to save the humans and not get myself flushed out of a torpedo tube.

7.

The Tanngrisnir Tanngrisnir Wowbagger's s.h.i.+p red-s.h.i.+fted from the real Universe into the mysterious omni-layer of dark s.p.a.ce. The view through the portholes was so utterly exotic that an average being could only handle a few seconds of it before either lapsing into catalepsy or replacing the actual view with some pleasant imagining that revealed a lot about the person doing the imagining.

Ford Prefect actually blushed.

'Goosnargh!' he squeaked, covering one porthole with his satchel. 'I've seen a few things in my day and in my night too, but that right there... that is...' And he fled the bridge, deciding that there were times in a man's life that it was better to be alone rather than discuss the view, which he had a sneaking suspicion originated in the recesses of his own mind, particularly the recess that had been conceived one winter afternoon during the meat festival of Carni-val when he'd been dressed as a pollo-bear and had become entangled in a tower of stacked chairs, only to be rescued by a gaggle of three-legged student liposuckers who demanded a very curious reward.

'What's his problem?' wondered Random. 'All I see is nothing and more nothing. An eternity of nothing to see.'

'You are lucky,' said Bowerick Wowbagger. 'There are worse things to see than nothing. Nothingness, for example.'

'Wow, that's cheery. You should write greetings card messages.'

'Listen, odd child. You may learn something.'

'From you? No thanks. I think I'd rather stay stupid.'

'Your wish has already been granted.'

Random bristled a tad more than she was already bristling, which was a shade more than the average berry-snouted spikehog that has just smelled a hunting dog.

'How dare you, don't you know who I am?'

'A member of the Cult of Ridiculousness from the Stammering Mud Flats of Santraginus V?' offered Bowerick.

'That's ridiculous.'

'Oh, my mistake. The Cult of Ridiculous Ridiculous from the Stammering Mud Flats of Santraginus V.' from the Stammering Mud Flats of Santraginus V.'

Guide Note: This conversation had similar elements to the exchange that precipitated the collapse of the actual Cult of Ridiculousness from Santraginus V. The COR at their zenith had several dozen names on their mailing list, but the entire organization self-destructed following a particularly contentious Friday Q&A session when Committee Treasurer T'tal Ychune challenged Chairman Oloon Yjeet as to the validity of the society's name. The minutes read as follows: Yjeet: The chair recognizes Treasurer Ychune.