Disclaimer: We are not now, nor have we ever been Douglas Adams. We do not claim to own these characters. We're not even close. Not even British, and we don't know how to que. This is only our theory of what happened, given the characters' references to their own and each other's past and a lot of really obscure HG2G trivia. We most certainly do not claim to be right about it.
A/N: Hey now. My sister and I are working on this thing, together surprisingly. Zaphod's my favorite, Ix (Ford) is her's. This is her first fanfic and my first HG2G fanfic. I can only say one thing about that: our lives are largely based on the concept that it seemed like a good idea at the time. This is no different. We are in no way trying to make fun of or parody HG2G (is that even possible?), we're just paying homage to Douglas Adams, who, by the way, isn't dead: he just hitched a ride on a passing spaceship and went home. ;-)
Chapter 1 (The Collapsing Hrung Disaster)
Doorbells do not detonate in the usual sense of the word. The function of a doorbell is to be pressed to inform non-telepathic beings that there's another non-telepathic being standing outside the door and really hoping that the first non-telepathic being will open it. They really aren't meant to cause disasters of any kind (outside of admitting unwanted guests) which is why you don't often see doorbells made from C4, uranium, plutonium, or the spit of the Bendofian Ultra-camel.
Doorbells simply don't detonate. That's one of those small little rules that make the universe seem to make sense when it's really a massively big place that makes no sense whatsoever. And that's all there is to say about it. Doorbells do not detonate.
Usually.
The problem really arises when the doorbell is located in the Plural Z sector, which seems to exist for the sole purpose of breaking all those small little rules that seem to make the universe make sense and expose it for the great disorganized mass of stuff that it is. The particular doorbell in question is, unfortunately for a small planet in the near vicinity of Beatleguise, in the Plural Z sector. More specifically, ZZ Plural Z Alpha. Still more specifically, the front door of a modest, if not particularly nice, house in Islington where the ape-descended owner of the house is no where near even considering the smallest possibility of almost suspecting that the apparently innocent doorbell repairman who sets off the sound was retro-actively responsible for the destruction of an entire planet.
Whether he was suspected of it or not, he was. Pushing on the doorbell, it detonated with a great horrific sound.
A great, horrific, high-pitched "HRUNG!".
The repairman nodded with what might have looked to someone who knew the truth like grim satisfaction. He looked through the open door toward the other non-telepathic ape-descendant.
"Alright, Mr. Dent, your doorbell's fixed. That'll be thirty pounds."
The money changed hands, and the man who was quite possibly the most destructive doorbell repairman in the galaxy went on his way.
The great and horrific "HRUNG!" went on it's way too.
It went backwards, upside down and sideways through the space-time continuum. It careened through light years in seconds. It went without pause back almost two centuries. It stopped for a coffee in a little eddie in the space-time continuum that was a popular rest-stop for RTCs (Randomly traveling co-incidences). It stopped at it's randomly selected destination where it was detected by one–and only one–entity on a small planet in the near vicinity of Beatleguise. Beatleguise 7, to be exact.
A tallish being with ginger-ish hair who appeared to be descended from an ape but quite certainly wasn't looked up in great distress from the computer readouts he was monitoring. The technology that had served absolutely no purpose for several decades previous to this had finally fulfilled it's missive: it had finally detected a very dangerous RTC.
Under normal circumstances the sound of a doorbell is not dangerous. But the strange thing about RTCs is that when normal things (insofar as normal things exist which isn't very) become RTCs they are magnified 42 times to the power of infinity. At that decibel level the quietest sound in the galaxy (which happens to be the rustling of the whiskers of the rabbit-like vern of Beladonn 6) becomes dangerous. When the phenomenon of RTC magnification was discovered on Beatleguise, a system was immediatly put in place to detect them. The fact that the planet was at the time standing was a testament that it hadn't detected any yet.
When the time finally came, the being working at the machinery realized it's flaw. A rather glaring flaw, now that it was in the open: the machine only detected them. There was absolutely no system in place for what to do if it did exactly that. And now there was nothing he could do about it. After trying to run in several equally useless directions, he dashed out the door of his office to make good use of the last five minutes his planet would exist.
He dashed down that hall and tore open the room where his infant son was sitting quietly on the floor with a small metallic toy. Grabbing his son, he dashed into the adjoining bathroom and grabbed a towel. No real reason that he knew of. He'd just heard that in a situation like this if you must grab something, grab a towel. He dashed for the nearest space shuttle rental and leapt in one.
"Hey!" a being who's total remaining life span had about 45 seconds left on it shouted, "Rental for that is twenty Altarian dollars a day and-"
"Don't bother, you're about to be blown up!" replied the one who knew this. He was panting after all that dashing and grabbing.
He started the engine, in complete defiance of local shuttle speed laws which were about to be forcibly repealed anyways and gunned it for the next planet out in orbit. He had relatives there.
Just behind the shuttle, there a great and horrible high pitched sound collapsed over the planet. A great, horrific "HRUNG!" collapsed over the planet and them the planet collapsed on it's self.
The being, who's name and the current name of his son are un-spell-able in this alphabet and unpronounceable in this tongue, saw this on the rear view screen of the shuttle. He sighed. This was definitely a low point in his life.
There was a tug on his pant-leg. He looked down and saw his only son, holding the towel close and holding the metallic toy. Now he could see what the toy was: a simplified toy-version of the infamous Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy. Children pushed a lettered button, were informed of the sound the letter made and given a sentence about something that started with the letter. For example, when S was pressed, it resulted in "Sssss. Space. Space is big."
"Dad?"
"Yes?"
"Where are we going?"
"To see your cousin and his family."
"Why?"
"Because..." he sighed, "Because our home is gone. We'll have to find somewhere to stay on their planet."
"Their planet's weird."
"Don't I know it."
"I wanna go home."
"We can't."
"Why?"
"World's gone."
"Really?"
"Yes."
A significant pause, during which the boy's father got on the sub-etha and signaled his half-brother that they were about to arrive in the spaceport and why, and that his son was with him. They agreed to meet him. When he got off the sub-etha, his son looked at him again.
"So we can't go to the park?"
"Not anymore."
"Oh. Alright."
He was, thankfully, an adaptive boy.
When they got to the spaceport, the man's half-brother and his son, the boy's cousin where waiting. The adults dispensed pleasantries while the typical conversation between children ensued–typical as in barely feet from the adults' but unobserved and much more frank.
The boy's cousin was a year older and had two heads, but this was perfectly acceptable since that was exactly how many those born and raised on the planet Beatleguise 8 were supposed to have. Both the faces were scowling at the sudden and unwelcome one-headed intruder.
"What are you doing here?"
"My planet collapsed."
"Why?"
"A Hrung collapsed on it.
"What's a Hrung?"
"I don't know."
"Why'd it collapse on Beatleguise 7?"
"I don't know."
There was a slow, significant pause. The cousin's heads tilted in opposite directions. Then he firmly and decisively gave the one-headed boy a name that stuck for quite a long time:
"Ix!"
A/N: If you don't already know, Ix means "boy who can not satisfactorily explain what a Hrung is or why it choose to collapse on Beatleguise 7".
Stay hoopy, people! Suulsa-Krii and Huntress out.