Disclaimer: Huntress and Suulsa-Krii own nothing. They have access to all five books, Huntress has a satchel like Ford's, and Suulsa-Krii still has her ticket stub from going to see the movie a few weeks ago. Suulsa-Krii and Huntress both own their own towels with neat H2G2 logos and Zaphod (for Suulsa-Krii) and Ford (for Huntress) logos on them. And that's it. They own the rights to exactly...absolutely nothing. Not even.
A/N: I'd like to say I'm happy to report the world's still here, but I'm not sure I am. Like was mentioned in the ch.2 A/N, Huntress and I really knew where our towels were. We were ready. We had this really, huge, seriously brilliant escape plan and didn't get to use it...and it would have been so much more fun than what actually happened, which would be nothing. No end-of-the-world. No sudden explosion. Not even an unexpected bottle rocket going off.
Anyways, so we know we're evil. Compared to chapter two, chapter three has been centuries in coming. Huntress and I were just having a little tiff about something stupid. But we're good now. I did not attempt to sell her, lose her in the woods, or seal her in a box. (Although I once locked her in a suitcase, it was because I wanted to see if she fit and it was eight years ago. She still holds it against me, though.)
To everyone who has reviewed: Thank you so much. You're all so bright, the light you give off could illuminate a small municipality. You're so seriously brilliant, I want you accept this complimentary sausage I present you to eat while you enjoy the chapter which will be starting presently:
Chapter 3 (A Frood In Need Is A Frood Indeed)
Around Betelgeuse 8, a small moon orbited at a formally respectful distance like it was considering if it had known the planet below long enough not to be considered rude if it asked the planet a particularly personal question. The small moon was where the concert was actually going to be, though all the fans would be on the planet's surface. Well, not quite so much on the surface as in a cement bunker full of display screens under the surface while the noise came in through several meters of dirt and cement from speakers that lay face down and were the only component of the system actually on the surface. The fans still left at the end mostly deaf.
This was standard operating procedure for hosting a concert by Disaster Area.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy has this to say on the subject of Hotblack Desiato and Disaster Area:
"Loud."
After beginning exactly that way, it goes into a little more depth:
"Very loud.
Very, very loud.
Really, very, very loud.
Anyone who values their ear drums, however many they may have, is not advised to ever attend a Disaster Area concert. The effect on a typical being's ear drums has been observed to be extreme. Most commonly, the small bones that comprise it intentionally shattering one another in order to prevent the brain from being turned into an unpleasantly gooey grey slurry-like substance. Other observed effects include the ear drums jumping ship--well, ear, actually--and simply running off, or, rarely, legally divorcing the rest of the ear and moving out the following day, splitting the contents of the ear--hair, wax, Babel Fish, etc.--two ways. This has lead to the popular urban legend of the Planet Of The Lost Ear Drums, a world where the population consists entirely of people's ear drums lost in Disaster Area concerts. The concept of coarse if ridiculous: how could a lot of tiny bones hitch a lift this so-called planet?
The star of Disaster Area is one Hotblack Desiato. If you really needed to be told that, you ought to be fed to the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast Of Traal. If you still don't know who he is, you deserve to be slathered in steak sauce, stripped of your clothing and towel, and then fed to the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast Of Traal. Like all rockers, Hotblack started small and quickly exploded like several suns going supernova, which is an effect Disaster Area often uses in their shows. He started young too, still in high school–about seventeen when he and the band went to cause major tidal shifts on several important planets. It's said that during one of these first and reputedly loudest concerts, the sound vibrations rocketing down from the moon where they were playing had already broken 408 people's bones, damaged planet-wide surveillance satellites and absolutely shattered the magnificent Crystal Palace of Duhbivon V (the sound was aimed at Duhbivon IV) before anyone realized that the band were doing it themselves from the moon: the mikes and all the sound equipment of the surface of Duhbivon IV were all unplugged.
Loud.
Very loud.
Very, very ,loud.
Really very, very loud."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Zaphod and Ix loved loud music.
When Zaphod was just under thirteen and Ix just over twelve, Hotblack Desiato and Disaster Area–though they weren't quite "big" yet--were playing their first concert for Betelgeuse 8. Zaphod's parents had bought him and Ix tickets to go to the cement bunker full of screens to see and hear as much of the concert as was non-fatal, almost completely, if not entirely, just because Zaphod had wanted the tickets and asked for them.
Disaster Area's star-limo was scheduled to land on the planet's surface to bring the band to sign autographs, do media appearances and sample the girls who passed for the local Disaster Area groupies.
The band hadn't showed yet, though, even just to sign autographs, and two boys on their day off school were getting impatient. Two boys who had been born as something along the lines of cousins and been raised as brothers although not quite. Two boys who's combined headcount totaled three.
"Zaphod, I'm telling you. Not gonna work."
One head turned to look at and speak with Ix. The other continued watching the docking entrances of the long, tubular mainway of the spaceport, which was shaped rather like a massive sausage with all the exits leading off elsewhere.
"It'll be fine. Complete and totally fine. Just be cool, dude, be cool."
Ix sat on the hard bench they were on quietly for a moment. He was trying to be cool, which was very difficult when one is getting a sore bottom. He fidgeted and adjusted his backpack. It wasn't a school day, but he still wore his backpack on weekends. He just changed the stuff that was in it to be stuff that was useful on weekends. The one item that didn't change was the towel. He'd always thought hitch hikers were pretty neat, probably starting when he had the toy Guide as a little kid. The towel was the one his Dad had thought would have been an excellent present to give Ix for his seventh birthday several years ago, and it apparently was. He'd found it good to have around. Zaphod, seeing how convenient Ix's towel had been and not liking one bit the idea of Ix having anything he didn't have, filched a towel from a bathroom next time he'd stayed at a hotel while traveling with his parents. However, he made Ix carry it for him, stuffed in that backpack of his.
Showing up first to wait for Hotblack Desiato's star limo to show up so they'd be the first to meet him was what Zaphod thought was best idea he ever had. Zaphod thought all his ideas are the best he ever had. Ix had thought it was a good idea, but Zaphod had not specified the amount of waiting, of which there was a great deal. It was starting to look like one of the worst best ideas Zaphod had ever had.
"But I'm hungry...and bored...and tired...and going to fail physics again if I don't write that report..."
"Sucks to physics!"
"And that's why you'll fail too."
Zaphod and Ix wouldn't normally be in the same year of school, but Zaphod had failed the first grade the first time he took it because he wanted to do all the activities his way. And if that means making dot pictures on his work instead of trying to fill in the correct answer circles for the teaching computer to assess, then that was just the way it was going to be. He was also rather a disruption in class, making Ix's grades suffer (Ix had always sat in the work station behind him). Ix, for his part, was starting to worry his father: through lack of practice and exposure, he was developing a heavy speech impediment. Not one you could detect, however, unless you knew what the language of his native Betelgeuse 7 was supposed to sound like. He was, much to his father's shame, unable even to pronounce his own name. The nickname had stuck long enough that Ix was perfectly content to say that his name was indeed Ix.
It had taken some all-star level waiting, but a star limo eventually pulled into the spaceport. It was long and black with steely-blue frosted windows in the side. It seemed to Ix and Zaphod (Ix more than Zaphod) to be very large though it wasn't markedly larger than any other spaceship. Neither of them questioned who was in it.
One should always question everything, especially since the universe has absolutely no incentive to make any real sense at all and it's always perfectly possible that it's having you on and only pretending to make sense so it can laugh at you. Question everything and you will, with a bit of luck, avoid some of the mocking of the universe.
The universe was laughing so hysterically at Ix and Zaphod that several suns went supernova.
By a cosmically meaningless co-incidence, one of the suns that went supernova was one orbited by a totally nondescript, rocky world on which resided a totally nondescript roughly humanoid species. They were perfectly nice folks to be around, friendly, always had an Altarian dollar or two to spare for a friend and were one of the best races in the galaxy at taking a joke. In fact, by another wholly meaningless co-incidence, one of this totally nondescript roughly humanoid species had just said to another: "Hey, Qzicajaktyl! Pull my finger!". Just after which, the planet promptly exploded.
When the star limo door opened, there was the usual bustle that surrounded a mind-bogglingly important enough a person to own a star-limo doing something as mind-bogglingly important as get out of one. Ix and Zaphod were now more than sure they were correct. Another sun or two went supernova.
Zaphod and Ix were both of a relatively slight build. Easily lost in a crowd of adults. Zaphod tilted his heads in opposite directions. Ix cringed. He'd been around his cousin long enough to know that when his heads tilt in that particular way, he was getting another best idea he'd ever had. Good rarely came of those, and Ix usually ended up taking the blame while Zaphod got off with a half-hearted "You know better. Don't do it again."
Zaphod grabbed hold of the collar of Ix's shirt and with the excited, but slightly reluctant, Ix in tow, he plunged into the crowd.
When the crowd dispersed, the important personage had left the limo to do what he was there to do, Ix found himself standing in the entry way of the star-limo.
"Zaphod?"
"Huh?"
"I dunno how to tell you this, but we appear to be in the entry way of the star-limo."
"No kidding. I had no idea. Tell me more." Zaphod said sarcastically.
Ix looked at him oddly.
"You really hadn't noticed?"
Zaphod sighed. Ix had adopted the name people called him by on Betelgeuse 8, but retained the inability to recognize or employ sarcasm that characterized the denizens Betelgeuse 7 (or had when there had been a Betelgeuse 7 to have denizens to be characterized).
"Of coarse I noticed! That was the whole plan!"
"Was it."
"Yes!"
"Sure."
"No, seriously! It was!"
"I believe you." Ix said in a tone that screamed that he didn't. It was the closest he ever came to sarcasm.
"Oh, sod off."
"No, thank you. So what was this huge master plan of yours that involved getting us locked inside a spaceship?"
"Star-limo."
"Whatever."
"Alright. So, there's no way off a planet except by a ship, right?"
"Well..." Ix thought this over.
"Yeah, you could build the galaxy's largest catapult and launch yourself out there, but I don't think they will."
"Yeah, the chances are pretty slim."
"Right. So Disaster Area eventually will come back to the star-limo, right? And once Hotblack gets in, there'll be no crowds to compete with for his attention, right? He'll have to talk to us! All we have to do is wait here for him to come back."
"Sounds logical enough."
However, nothing that sounds logical is, as a general sort of rule insofar as there are rules which isn't very, not true by the most basic fact that it is logical. When making plans and decisions, the more large-scale it is, the more you should remember that the universe is not logical and logic cannot therefore be forced upon it. It's like your logic is a balloon and the universe is a cosmically big porcupine. Now, imagine forcing a balloon on a porcupine. The balloon just gets blown to smithereens and the porcupine is left standing triumphant in its apathy. Trying to apply logic to the universe is much the same, except instead of starting with a balloon and a porcupine and ending with a porcupine and little bits of decimated balloon, you start with a logical idea and a universe and end with a universe and little bits of decimated logic strewn about.
Zaphod's idea, unfortunately, called for a nice, logical, predictable universe and we simply haven't got one.
The star-limo did not belong to Hotblack Desiato and had nothing whatsoever to do with Disaster Area. The owner of the star-limo had earned enough money to finance and warrant his ownership of it by making career out of being a complete and total jerk. An utter git. It happened to be very profitable.
His name was Vendreevold and he was from Glisecon II. He was unremarkable for his species, meaning he was a tall life form, very roughly humanoid (as in, he was bipedal, but with more arms than the human wont, totaling four) with greyish skin due to the fact that he was silicon based. Being silicon based meant that his race had an unspoken rapport with computers–one silicon creature to another–which they often took advantage of to get free unlimited access to the sub-etha net. Vendreevold was engaged in that activity once when he accidentally stumbled across a detailed description of common laws held on many major planets. An obnoxious revelation came to him in a blinding flash: the way to fame, wealth, and power was through legal loopholes. So he quit his job as a computer keyboard sanitizer and embarked on a career as a public irritant. He traveled to distant planets bringing little known and unenforced laws to the attention of the government, forcing massive changes in the entire layouts of civilizations, netting him several hundred thousand Altarian dollars in fees as a "political researcher" (a title he'd invented for himself just for the occasion), which he used to finance his campaign to make it mandatory for all avian creatures over six feet to wear bowling shoes, and now every time an Arcturan Mega-ostrich or some such is shod, he must be payed royalties. The biggest prizes came from the most poorly organized of any known bureaucracy: the Galactic Patent Office. Vendreevold had managed to procure patents, and therefore royalties, on several inventions that no civilization could ever survive without, such as fire, the wheel, crop rotation, interplanetary travel, and the circulation of anything with any sort of resemblance to blood. This meant that many planets now imposed a "Vendreevold tax" in order to come up with the money for all the royalties they had to pay him every year.
The star-limo belonged to Vendreevold, who was on Betelgeuse 8 trying to obtain the rights to a patent on the spoken word. But Ix and Zaphod didn't know that. As far as they knew, the ship was empty and waiting for Hotblack Desiato and Disaster Area to return to it. Which is why they almost jumped out of their respective skins when a hand was laid on both their shoulders.
"Hey! Whoa! Chill out, it's all hoopy. I'm not gonna hurt you."
Ix and Zaphod turned around to look the person in the face. The person was young, perhaps mid twenties, humanoid, dark haired, male, and rumpled-looking. He had a grey shirt, green pants, and a dark red towel slung casually around his neck like a scarf. He had a sort of pack with him, an almost-satchel, open a bit, from inside which at least three metal objects glinted. He had a resourceful, irresponsible, mild to moderately dishonest, no-fixed-address air about him and was really very disheveled. Like he'd been sleeping in a cardboard box somewhere for at least five days.
There was only one thing this guy could be.
Ix grinned from ear to ear.
"Are you a hitchhiker!"
The hitchhiker grinned back and did a mischievous half-bow.
"None hoopier nor froodier."
Zaphod joined in the grinning. A real, live, hitchhiker. Very high on his "cool" scale.
"Cool!" Zaphod intoned. "Have you been sleeping in a cardboard box somewhere for at least five days?"
"Yes. Why do ask?"
"No reason."
"Ah. I see. Well, come on. I've found a good place to hide out until he gets back. His security detail won't like finding any of us standing about in the entry way." the hiker said. "You guys know where your towels are, right?"
Zaphod pointed at Ix's backpack.
"He's got 'em."
"Great. Here, follow me."
Ix and Zaphod followed the hitchhiker. He led them towards the back of the star-limo and into a disused back-up maintenance chamber. He sat down on the smooth, metal floor and Ix and Zaphod copied him.
"My name's Gurvan, by the way."
Zaphod nodded in greeting with both heads.
"My name's Zaphod, but what some people call me is a different story altogether."
Gurvan laughed and imitated Zaphod's nod as close as he could with one less head.
Ix tried his best to give his Betelgeusian name in the language of his birth-planet, stumbled, stuttered, and lisped horribly halfway through it, then decided he wasn't going to be able to say it right this time either. No one would have noticed if he was saying it right or not, but he decided if he couldn't say it right, he wouldn't say it at all.
"My name's Ix."
They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes, until the star-limo took off again. Zaphod and Ix didn't notice, but Gurvan had. The difference between a moving spacecraft and a spacecraft with a much more stationary nature is subtle, at least to the people on it. Your equilibrium needs to be trained before it can tell if it's moving or not. Unless you go into hyperspace, then your inner ear won't tell you you're moving, your stomach will.
"Ix, Zaphod. Is this your first time hitching? You look real young, but I guess that's a bit relative. For all I know, you could both be forty-two thousand years old and just look pre-teen-ish." he thought for a moment. "That'd come in handy."
"It would, but we're not. He's really twelve, I'm really thirteen."
"Ah. Well, any particular reason you're hitching so young?"
"...we're not hitching..."
"We hope to some day!" Ix interjected.
"We were just waiting for Hotblack Desiato to come back so we could get his attention."
Gurvan looked at them.
"You thought this was Disaster Area's limo?"
"Isn't it?"
"Well...no..."
Ix and both of Zaphod's heads looked at each other.
Gurvan explained about Vendreevold.
"We have to get off this limo! We're not supposed to leave the planet without our parents' permission!" Ix said.
"I wouldn't advise getting off right this second."
"But we have to!"
"Not a good idea."
"Why not?"
"Because it'll be almost instantly lethal. We've already left Betelgeuse 8."
"So we're in space?" Zaphod asked.
"Yeah."
"Cool."
"...Yeah..." Ix agreed.
"So...what do you plan to do about this?" Gurvan asked.
Ix and both of Zaphod's heads looked at each other.
"We don't know." Zaphod said. "Where are we going?"
"We're on Vendreevold's star-limo-"
"The guy my Dad complains about because he makes tax hikes?" Ix asked.
"Probably. And, see, Vend–you know what? Here. Look it up yourselves. You two look like the type who'll have these for themselves one day anyways."
Gurvan went into his pack and produced a compact, rectangular metal thing. It was scuffed, tarnished, and generally way-worn. It had the remnants of a price tag on the back–water stained, sun bleached, peeling and flaking, but visible–that indicated that it had years ago been sold for slightly less than the standard going rate of an Encyclopedia Galactica. Most notably, it had "Don't Panic" written in large, friendly letters on the front. Gurvan handed Zaphod and Ix his copy of the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. They took it, both holding it, by one hand each.
Ix more than Zaphod got an instant sense of partial deja vu. Then he realized why that was.
"Oh! Hey! A real one!"
"Yeah." Gurvan said, "Well, about as real as we are, but who's to say how real we are?"
"Well, I know I at least am real." Zaphod said. "No one could fake being this cool."
Ix looked at the Guide. It had far more buttons than the toy he remembered, but putting all three heads together with Zaphod, they managed to figure out how to work it. Surprisingly, it was Zaphod's pushing buttons mostly at random that found them the entry, since it was situated most illogically between the one titled "Arc Welding" and the one titled "Treating Severe Burns" due to a grievous error in alphabetizing. Having found the entry, they read very few facts that you don't already know about Vendreevold.
"So Vendreevold does this on every planet in the star systems he visits?" Ix asked.
That was one of the few facts they you didn't already know.
"Yeah." Gurvan agreed simply.
"So he'll be going to Betelgeuse 9?"
"Yup."
"And so we're going to Betelgeuse 9?"
"Yeah."
"Cool." Zaphod said.
"Yeah..." Ix agreed.
"But I expect you two will eventually be wanted back home."
"Theoretically."
"Ah...well, I guess I can give you a hand with that when we reach the planet."
Some while later, Gurvan was trotting through a dirty spaceport with two boys in tow who's head count totaled three. He'd had Ix and Zaphod get out there towels and tie the narrow end around their necks like a cape so he could pick them out easily in a crowd.
"Hurry up! Come on! Haven't got all day."
They trotted along faster.
Ix and Zaphod were bumped and jostled by all sorts of beings who were the exact kind of unsavory character who hung about in dirty spaceports who they shouldn't associate with for several more years. They heard snippets of unsavory drinking songs of the exact kind they shouldn't be hearing for several more years. Coming from the bars and pubs that lined many of the more hitchhiker-dense areas of the spaceport (like the general area of the slightly squalid traveler hostel), they smelled the exact sort of unsavory drinks they shouldn't be drinking for several more years. Gurvan was familiar with all of these elements to the point where he hardly noticed anymore, but it was all pretty damned new to Zaphod and Ix.
Gurvan was fiddling with a black device, pushing one of a few buttons.
"What are you doing?"
"Trying to hitch us a ride, Ix."
"How are you doing that?"
They'd stopped walking. Gurvan was talking to Ix, Ix was being talked to by Gurvan and Zaphod was staring mesmerized by two things: one head by a pawnshop window where he could see not only very shiny, expensive things, but also some magazines with scantily clad alien women, the second head by his own reflection in a large mirror in the window.
"This is the thumb." Gurvan was explaining. "I press buttons depending on what I need. If I need to hail a repair bot for my own ship, I press this. If I want to request to be matter-transferred aboard a ship, I press here. If I want to try and see if I can force a low-flying ship to land, I use this button, but some ships can jam the signal..." he noticed Zaphod staring in the window, grabbed him by the collar and started walking again. "When you're older, kid."
"I'm older than Ix!"
"That's hardly an issue."
They managed to hitch a ride on a ship transporting tonnes of confetti for retail sale by having Gurvan pass Ix and Zaphod off as new forms of android (the passenger limit was one plus the pilot). The confetti-mover holed them up in the back, sitting on heaps of little paper bits cut into festive shapes. They were heading back to the spaceport of Betelgeuse 8. Ix and Zaphod took stock of the situation.
"So." Ix said, "We didn't get to meet Hotblack Desiato. We didn't get to see his limo."
"No, but we got to go see a new planet on a whim. Spaceports are cool."
"I practically live in them." Gurvan put in. His eyes were closed and he was mostly sleeping.
"And we got to be rescued by a hitchhiker. Thanks for that by the way." Zaphod said to him.
"No problem. I'm a frood glad to be of service. Besides, you'd have figured it out eventually. You both look hoopy."
"We are!" said Zaphod, who'd taken Gurvan's hiker-slang into his vocabulary.
"Yeah," said Ix, "But we didn't see Disaster Area and we missed the concert!"
Zaphod nodded mournfully with both heads.
"Are you sure? Sounds like space-lag." Gurvan asked, "Do you have anything still set for your own galactic time zone?"
Zaphod look a small portable game computer out of his coat pocket. He laughed hysterically.
"Ix! Ix! Look! It's still an hour before the show! We're gonna make it! We're gonna see Disaster Area!" he hollered.
Then both shouted, called, vociferated in perfect unison:
"DISASTER AREA! YYYYYYYYY-YES!"
Followed by the slightly hollow smacking noise of their forearms colliding. This action is roughly equivalent to the earth custom known as "high-five".
They did see Disaster Area that night. The sound exploded through several layers of dirt and cement. The vibrations caused everyone within to be covered in white chalk from the cement ceiling. The sound speakers had been turned to their lowest setting. The moon was off-orbit for six weeks.
Though every precaution was taken to ensure some safety for the fans, there was a decibel level that could have taken out several large office blocks if let loose upon the public. At the end of the concert, Ix and Zaphod left exultant but totally deaf. Zaphod deaf in all four ears. This condition lasted about a week.
Oddly enough, no one at the Disaster Area concert noticed the strangely-shaped "insect" that took an a cargo of the tiny bones that had escaped from several fans' ears and taken them to a far away and wholly unplausible planet.
A/N: Wow...yeah. Sorry again about the delay. And that chapter was very, very...rant-y. Just went off on tangents. A lot of it was written late at night. Suulsa-Krii (the main writer) usually finds it easiest to try to attempt to write in Douglas's style when the rest of the day's already sucked all the commonsense, orderly, rational thinking out through her ears.
Huntress: Not to say she's not always so weird.
Suulsa-Krii: I'll take that as a compliment.
Oh, and I apologize if you found it too early in the story for a "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy has this to say on the subject of..." bit, I sorta did, but I've been dying to write one. I couldn't hold off any longer.
Huntress: I'd like to mention that Suulsa-Krii is solely responsible for the whole thing with the pull-my-finger-joke. You'll notice Douglas never actually did any fart-jokes, so I sort of opposed it...also, only she can be held to blame for those random jabbering bits of random nonsense about logic and the universe being like a balloon and a porcupine, and the part about the ear drums, and the part about Vendreevold.
Suulsa-Krii: Why thank you, Huntress, for giving me credit for all the best parts! ;P
Huntress: Zark off.
Suulsa-Krii: Belgium!
Huntress: ...whoa...
Suulsa-Krii: Sorry.
Anyways, so stay hoopy all you froods! Suulsa-Krii and Huntress out.