Another planet, another old man stood gazing out across another landscape.
This planet was a long, long way away from Esflovian, however, and the view was not a desolate one. It was, in fact, rather beautiful.
The sun was beginning to sink behind the tree-covered Hondo Mountains. It still caught the billowing dust cloud and, within it, the horde of beasts charging steadily across the plain and then vanishing as they neared its end.
It was several hours since the Sandwichmaker and his strange friend had disappeared, borne on the back of one of the great herd but Old Thrashbarg had felt strangely compelled to stay watching in case, by some twist of fate, they returned from the land he knew only as “the Domain of the King”.
At last, as the last rays of the sun vanished and there was darkness in the valley, he knew he must return to the village and tell his people that their only beloved Sandwichmaker was gone forever. It would take one of his greatest feats of storytelling to explain why the Almighty Bob had taken away his greatest gift at this most fearful time. The Lamuellans were already greatly worried by the strange appearances of spaceships and strange women. This may reduce some of them to gibbering idiots.
For the moment he was at a loss for an explanation of suitable awe and majesty and he felt he needed to pray to almighty Bob for guidance. He lit his lamp and began to walk to the other valley, the dark, burnt valley where the sandwichmaker’s burning, fiery, chariot had landed. Here, he felt sure, he would find inspiration.
¨
It is a curious fact that virtually every civilisation in the universe has a legend in the depths of its ancient mythology that equates, more or less, to the Earth legend of Pandora’s Box.
Most historians are of the opinion that this it is perfectly natural for these to have developed independently as the idea of locking all the evils of the world away in a box has great appeal for any race regardless of type, form or breeding. The fact that there is always someone curious enough to release these evils is, again, perfectly natural.
The realisation of this has led to the formation of many teams of great historians who have finally realised that they don’t continually have to bicker and argue of their theories and, having agreed on this one fact, can go on to work together to truly chart the history of the great galaxies.
Unfortunately they are wrong. Totally wrong.
The legend of Pandora’s Box did not develop independently in each civilisation. It is, in fact, another one of those curious freaks of racial memory that persist in the mind long, long after the events themselves.
They all originate from a true story that happened many millions of years ago but which was so startling its legacy persists even to this day.
It concerns an artist by the name of Pann d’Oro from the planet Bouranz. It was he who, as all the subsequent legends tell, became so worried and depressed about all the bad things in the universe that he determined to lock them away forever.
He spent many long years pondering how he might do this, trying this, trying that. Complex things, simple things, but in the end, he just didn’t have a clue how he could do it.
He descended into deep and ever-deeper depression. He spent hours pacing his laboratory. His friends tried to cheer him up but to no avail.
“Come out to the ball-game” one would say.
“Lets go for a drink!” said another.
Then, one day, one joked, “You should go and see the Mind-Zoo – they’ve got a robot who’s even more depressed than you!”
And he did.
The robot sat on a small podium in the corner of the Zoo. He was renowned for having the most astonishing memory, for being possessed of the most powerful computational brain in the known universe but also for being terminally depressive.
The people would come to ask him questions, test his feats of memory but, more often, to mock the poor dejected metal man, making fun of his twisted limbs and scarred body. They’d laugh at his doleful monologues on life, chortle at his painful prose.
But Pann saw him differently, recognised enormous intellect within the metal shell. Every day he would go and talk with him. He befriended him.
Eventually he bought the robot from the Zoo and took him home.
Over the coming years the robot’s vast mind helped him design the tool that would allow him to achieve his ambition.
It was a very simple device but with enormous power. A tiny time machine that could travel the vast tracts in multiple dimensions to collect the evil that Pann sought to lock away forever. With a touch of artistic flair he shaped it as a bird to symbolise it’s flight across the universe of space and time.
Unfortunately he failed to realise, what with the universe being the infinite thing that it is, it contains an enormous amount of evil things.
When the machine was switched on, it collected so much evil in such a short space of time that the planet became super-heavy and collapsed into a black hole taking Pann d’Oro and the robot with it.
Slartibartfast finished telling this story to an astonished Fenchurch, Roosta and Zaphod.
They had come into the bridge of the Heart of Gold to find him connecting the battered remains of Marvin to the input/output terminals of Eddie, the ship’s computer.
When asked what he was doing he began to tell the story, which was one of many things he had found out about when he had been back to his own ship.
He continued, “I believe the robot in the story to have been none other than this machine that you knew of as Marvin.”
“I also believe the new Guide is, in fact, the bird-machine created by Pann d’Oro all those millennia ago, somehow released from the black hole, and that it presents unimaginable danger to the universe.
I am hoping we may find something deep in the robots memory banks that may help us fight it.”
The computer suddenly beeped into life “I’ve got something!”
“Show us” said the old man.
One of the huge visi-screens switched on. A blurred image appeared. It took a while to stabilise but at last could be seen to be a massive fiery shape that looked almost like a letter “E”.
It flickered and then became a “C”.
It flickered again to re-emerge as an “N”, then back to an “E”.
“The message!” shouted Fenchurch “It’s Gods Final Message.”
“What?” said the others in unison.
Fenchurch explained as the images went on to display “I-N-E-V-N-O-C-N-I E-H-T R-O-F E-S-I-G-O-L-O-P-A E-W.”
“We must be starting from his last memories,” said Zaphod, “we need to wind way-back.”
“Hold on, guys, I’ll see what I can do.” Said Eddie.
The images began to move faster, then faster again, then again until they were so fast that no real image could be discerned.
Every so often it appeared the image had stopped but it was, in fact just the robot sitting still for long, long periods, sometimes centuries. They all felt a sense of loneliness and dejectedness in the pathetic display.
“Poor Marvin,” said Fenchurch.
At last the image of a great, black bird flashed on the screen and Eddie stopped rewinding through the memory bank and started to replay.
The scene was of a small laboratory. It was cluttered with tools, pieces of metal, wires, and other components. There were piles of what looked to Fenchurch like take-away Pizza boxes. In fact that’s exactly what they were – something that only looked like take-away Pizza boxes.
A small unkempt man, presumably Pann d’Oro, sat just off to the robot’s left. A black, metal disc sat on a worktop to his right.
The man spoke, “Give me again the list of commands that will control it”
A dull metallic voice rang out and they all felt a slight shiver when they realised it was Marvin’s. It read out, one after the other, nine simple words and after each of them, the function the machine would perform.
“…and lastly, the self-destruct command…”
Marvin’s voice spoke the command, a seven-word phrase. Zaphod fell off his seat in shock. Fenchurch’s mouth fell open wider than she could ever believe it could. Roosta burst out laughing.
“Well,” said Slartibartfast, “it appears your robot had more of a sense of humour than you gave him credit for.”
“This means,” he continued, “we have a weapon in our fight to destroy it.”
“But will we be able to use it with a straight face?” said Zaphod as the others pulled him back onto his chair.
“We must.” The old man put on his serious face, “the universe depends on it.”
He walked away from the computer and added; “I learned a few other things when I was back at my ship.”
“What?”
“I believe I have found your friends.”
“Arthur?” said Fenchurch.
“Ford?” said Roosta.
“Trillian?” said Zaphod.
“Yes,” replied Slartibartfast, a smile creeping over his face, “all three.”
¨
Once the shock of Slartibartfast’s revelation had begun to wear off he went on to explain in more detail.
“It appears Prefect purchased a spacecraft on Saquo-Pilia Hensha around the time we arrived. A rather exotic one, something called an RW6…”
Zaphod butted in, “nah… don’t believe it.”
“But I assure…” tried Slartibartfast
“For one thing, Ford never bought a spaceship in his life.” Continued Zaphod.
“Now if you’d said he’d stolen it…
“And for another, you don’t just buy an RW6 – they only sell them to the real top dogs. You need to own several planets before you can get one of those. Even me, President of the Galaxy…”
“Ex-President” corrected Roosta.
“… had to go on a waiting list.”
“Nevertheless, it is true,” insisted the old man. “He has taken it, at great speed to an obscure planet, out on the very rim of the galaxy, called Lamuella.
“I have also found out that a spacecraft crash-landed on that same planet several years ago and that one of the passengers was an Earthman by the name of Arthur Dent.
“As a final twist, I had put enquires into some of the Tri-D companies as to the whereabouts of a reporter called Trillian Astra and it appears she has also recently visited Lamuella.”
“Well, what are we waiting for?” said Zaphod. “Your ship or mine?”
“I think, for what is to come, we will require the very special properties of the Heart of Gold for one more time,” said Slartibartfast as he strode across to the computer console. “Computer, plot an improbability course for Lamuella.”
“Already done.”
The ship disappeared from the tangled mass of vines it had lived under for the last few years and tore across the galaxy at highly incomprehensible speed. The field it generated swept the radiation from the planet and, given time, it would, once again be a lush, pleasant, peaceful planet. Given time.