Fenchurch got off the little shuttle that had brought her in from the orbiting space station. The intergalactic cruiser she had arrived on had docked with it, as there was no room on Saquo-Pilia Hensha for anything as big and ugly as a spaceport. All the planet’s landmass was given over to the pursuit of having fun.
She strolled up the long leafy boulevards and watched the beautiful people at play. She felt like a down and out walking through St. Tropez.
“Some place for the headquarters of a guide for impoverished hitchhikers,” she thought.
At length she spotted two huge towers in the distance. Halfway up the two were joined by a bridge and together they formed an enormous letter “H”.
The offices of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, probably the most famous, certainly the most successful, book in the history of publishing.
As she got nearer to the buildings she could see there seemed to have been some sort of disturbance. There was a large hole in the ground, strewn with what appeared to be chunks of meat.
Strange creatures with grey, sluglike skin were pushing back onlookers and trying to clean up the mess.
Suddenly there was a huge cry from the crowd and their eyes shot skyward. Fenchurch’s eyes joined them.
“By Zarquon! He’s done it again!” said a man next to her.
“Done what?” said Fenchurch.
“Gone and jumped out the window again,” said another. “Stupid Ghent.”
Fenchurch looked again and, sure enough, a man had jumped out of a window about a dozen or so floors up and was hurtling towards the ground. He seemed to be pulling at his one remaining shoe as he tumbled through the sky.
Suddenly, from behind where the crowd was standing, a small aircar came whizzing past.
To the amazement of the onlookers, the car’s pilot ejected just as he passed over the hole and the car shot upwards and neatly caught the man falling from the building.
It then proceeded to disappear over the horizon at a great rate of knots, weaving drunkenly as it went.
“Stupid publicity stunt” muttered many of the crowd as they milled away, the excitement now over, “lets get back to the game” and off they went to hunt for some more Wockets or, indeed, any Wockets since, as usual, they had completely failed to find any previously.
No one had noticed that the poor aircar pilot had fallen into the hole with a sickening thud and had joined the mass of splattered “meat”.
Fenchurch walked into the vast lobby. It took a few minutes to take in the incredible spectacle and the assault of noise on her ears but eventually she went up to one of the many strange winged creatures that sat at the long reception desk answering the telephones.
“Hello, Infinidim Enterprises, how may I direct your call?”
She waited for what seemed like an eternity until the winged creature deigned to speak to her.
“What to you want” it said, its face in a fixed smile of the type used by supercilious receptionists all over the universe. Fenchurch didn’t like it.
“Can you see if a Mr Ford Prefect is in the building,” Fenchurch asked, a little tight lipped, “he’s one of your field researchers.”
“I know who he is” spat back the winged one, “no good waste of money layabout, hitching about the Galaxy when he should be doing a real job. I certainly wouldn’t have let him in.
“He sometimes, however, has his own, err, unusual methods of entry. I’ll check for you.”
Her long, spindly tentacle dialled a number and she spoke at length to someone on the other end.
“I am informed that Mr Prefect has just left the building,” she said to Fenchurch. “Also by a most unusual method,” she added.
“Mr Harl, however, is most interested in meeting any friends of Mr Prefect and has requested that you accompany me to his office”.
Her face had hardened to a sneer, which Fenchurch liked even less than the smile. Out of the corner of her eye she glimpsed a couple of the grey, sluglike, creatures starting to move towards her.
“I think I’ll decline Mr Harl’s kind offer” she said and bolted for the door. As she did she nearly knocked over a courier carrying a small box. A small robot flying just above bleeped with alarm.
Fenchurch crashed out through the lobby doors sprinting faster than she had run since she almost won the 100 metres in her school sports. She could hear the clumping of heavy steel boots behind her but didn’t look back to see how far behind they were. She kept her head down and weaved in and out of the crowds of revellers.
From behind came shouts of “Stop! Resistance is useless!” She ignored them and carried on running as fast as she could.
Cries came from the more stupid members of the crowd, “Wocket! – I’m sure I saw a wocket!”
Two blocks along she decided to try and slip down a sidestreet to shake her pursuers off. No sooner had she done this than an arm reached out and grabbed her and a hand was clamped across her face.
She thrashed about but the arms were too strong.
“Stop struggling,” said a voice, “I am a friend”
¨
A few hours later, sitting in a quiet pavement café in the Zoordrax district, well away from the threat of Infinidim thugs, she discovered who this new friend was. He was of roughly human appearance, very fit and tanned but looking like he could use a bath, a shave and good sleep.
“My name is Roosta” he said, “I am a long time friend, fellow hiker and drinking partner of the man you seek, Ford Prefect.
“This is probably the reason I look a little frayed around the edges these days.” He ran his fingers through the scraggy growth on his face.
“Ford stayed at my place last night before he went in to see his editor today. At least he was supposed to have stayed there, in actual fact we seemed not to stay anywhere but spent most of the time moving round the various drinking establishments in this part of the city. Ford said he wanted to introduce me to what was known as a “pub-crawl” back on a planet he had been for a long time. He explained what a pub was and by the early hours of the morning I got the meaning of the crawl bit.”
“That would be the Earth, where he had been, where I’m from.” Fenchurch chipped in.
“Really?” said Roosta in surprise, “then you must be Trillian!”
“Well, no, actually” she replied and she went on to tell the whole great long story, finishing up with her arrival at the Guide offices.
“I heard you asking for Ford at the desk so kept an eye on you. When you did a runner, I nipped out the back way and cut you off at the side street,” Roosta finished off the story.
“I’m glad that you did, those Infinidim guys looked pretty mean.”
“Infinidim. Pah!” spat Roosta, “those guys are Vogons.”
“Vogons? They’re the guys who zapped my planet, or at least my old one, or…” her voice tailed off, she felt she didn’t have to explain.
They sat and sipped their drinks, listening to some music drifting from down the street.
“So where do I go from here?” said Fenchurch, “I still need to find Arthur.”
Roosta didn’t reply. His eyes were watching something behind her “The guy in the corner has been watching us very intently for the past half-hour. I think its time we left. Don’t look round, just get up and start walking down the street.”
Fenchurch did as she was told and Roosta followed her. When they had got a little way down the street, they both turned to see the figure following them. It appeared to be an old man in a hooded gown of some sort. For all his apparent age he seemed to be able to move very quickly.
“Run,” shouted Roosta and she did. She had to duck and dive amongst the oncoming crowds and when she emerged, she found she had lost Roosta.
Following on from a successful formula from earlier in the day, she slipped into a side street. This time appeared to be not quite so successful as she ran straight into the old man.
She bounced off him and fell on the ground. He towered over her like some sort of avenging angel.
“Good Evening,” he spoke, “Do not be alarmed. I mean you no harm. I merely wish to know why you seek Ford Prefect and whether you have found him. Ugh…”
With that, he fell to the ground in a crumpled heap. Behind him appeared Roosta. He had wrapped a large stone in his towel forming a makeshift weapon, once again proving it’s value as the Hitch-Hiker’s most useful possession. With this he had struck the old man a fierce blow to the head, rendering him unconscious.
¨
Later again, they all sat in Roosta’s small apartment. Fenchurch tended to the large lump on Slartibartfast’s head while Roosta paced the floor nervously. They had each recounted the strange sequence of events that had brought them there and as Slartibartfast finished his story a sense of unease had begun to form.
They felt the myriad complexities of improbability had thrown them together.
“When I arrived at the Guide Offices and heard that an Earth woman had been there only a few hours earlier looking for Prefect, I assumed it must be Trillian,” the old man concluded
“Common mistake, it seems,” said Fenchurch, glancing at Roosta.
“I also assumed that the female who had been with Arthur Dent on Earth was also Trillian but I see now that it was also you,” continued the old man.
“But,” interjected Fenchurch, “that was in another parallel universe. The Earth doesn’t seem to exist in this one.”
“This universe, that universe, it doesn’t seem to matter. We who have been affected by the improbability field of the Gold Bail seem to wander through parallels at will.” He rubbed the lump on his head. ”All I know, and I don’t even know why I know it, is that I need to take Dent, Prefect, Beeblebrox, Trillian and the Heart of Gold back to the plural zones and reverse the act that caused the fabric of space time to become distorted.”
“You mean you need to untangle the threads of the weave?” Fenchurch enquired.
“Yes, indeed, a very good way of putting it,” Slartibartfast was slightly taken aback by the remark, “where did you learn that theory of space/time and probability?”
“Oh, from someone who was a very good friend when I needed him, a long time ago. ” Fenchurch lowered her head thoughtfully. She wondered, not for the first time, if she would ever see Morthern again and if she could ever repay his kindness.
Once Slartibartfast had recovered, they teleported up to the Starship Bistromath. Roosta agreed to come along to help try and persuade Zaphod to join their mission. He did so only on the condition that once this was done, they would drop him back home to resume his quiet, hitching life. He had heard of the improbability drive and wanted nothing to do with it.
Climbing up the stairs of the ship, Fenchurch was surprised to see the crumpled remains of an old robot sitting in the corner. “Marvin,” she cried, “How on earth did he get here?”
“Oh, I picked him up from where you buried him on Preliumtarn,” said Slartibartfast, “thought his memory banks might give me a clue as to where you had gone. But most of the more recent stuff is gone, all there seems to be is eons and eons of waiting. When this is over I might see if I can repair him.”
“Now,” he continued, “let us see if we can sober up Beeblebrox and get on with the business of saving the universe.”