The small bistro drifted lazily in orbit around Saquo-Pilia Hensha. In the control room Slartibartfast paced the floor nervously and peered into the bottoms of the bottles that were the ships instruments. He paced and muttered, he bit his fingers, he folded his arms, he shook his head. In short, he fretted.
He had wanted to go down with them when they had hatched their hair-brained scheme to get into the Guide offices but Ford and Zaphod had said he was too old and slow.
Arthur was a bit more tactful and said he didn’t want him to get hurt when the shooting started.
So he had agreed to stay and look after Fenchurch and Random, who was now much calmer and settled. They, in turn were looking after Trillian, who still slept in her deep coma.
It didn’t stop him worrying and wishing he were there, though.
Fenchurch and Random sat in the central computational area and drank endless cups of coffee served by the robot waiter. They had only known each other a short time but already formed a strong friendship. Perhaps it was strengthened by their common link with Arthur Dent or by the strain of the horrific events that had been through but whatever it was, they felt they had known each other forever.
It is
curious he way that the most trivial problems can sometimes assume an
importance out of all proportion to the original problem and also that the most
serious problems can sometimes be seen as trivial.
So it is with human, and indeed some inhuman, bodies.
It would be a rare earth person who has never cut himself or herself on the edge
of a piece of paper and experienced what is perceived to be incredible pain.
Conversely, the newspapers are full of stories of people having their hands, arms, legs and everything short of their actual heads ripped, cut or torn off, apparently feeling no pain and walking, dragging or stumbling to get medical help (or sewing it back on themselves).
The medical profession will tell you all the wonderful reasons for this, going on about adrenaline, nerve cauterisation and all sorts of things but the fundamentals behind are that the body knows full well when something is serious and when it isn't.
And it
doesn't want to die…
If you cut your finger on paper it gives you a sharp pain to tell you "That was
dumb, don't do it again!"
If, however, you rip your arm off in a threshing machine, your body goes
"Whoops! This is serious but if I let him know how serious it is he's going to
panic, faint or even have a heart attack."
So it throws up the biological equivalent of a Somebody Else's Problem Field to stop you worrying about it long enough to get yourself fixed.
For many other races
in the universe the problem doesn’t exist as, if they lose a
finger/tentacle/arm/leg and, sometimes, even head, they can just grow a new one.
Even so, it is interesting to see what happens if a body finds itself ripped
apart and reconstituted mixed up with someone else’s body.
¨
There were footsteps on the stair up to the room and Fenchurch and Random turned to look. Expecting Slartibartfast or the robot waiter they were stunned to see, instead, Trillian.
“Hi!” said Trillian.
“Hi!” said Tricia
“Mother!” yelled Random and she ran to her. Suddenly she stopped short. She didn’t know which bits to hug. The right head was obviously Trillian and the left Tricia but as to where the rest of the body was from… Who knew?
In the end she settled for a kiss on the rights head’s right cheek and a vague squeeze to the right side of the body.
“You must be Fenchurch?” she reached out her right hand to shake. “Arthur told me so much about you in the short time we were on Lamuella.”
“This is Tricia, my,” she stifled a giggle, “other half, so to speak.”
“Hello,” said Tricia, reaching out the left hand. “We really must apologise for worrying you over the past few days – or is it weeks? We had a few things to sort out. What with a the strange events at Rupert and the Earth and all this.” She gestured vaguely to her body.
“What?” said Random, “You mean you weren’t in a coma?”
“Only partly. Most of the time we could hear you all OK but we had so much we needed to sort out between ourselves we thought it best to keep quiet until we knew what we were doing. It’s a strange business, being joined like this.
“ When it first happened and we were pretty freaked out, it’s as if our body just switched off the outside world to give us one less thing to worry about. After a while, we came to the conclusion it was something we just going to have to live with”
“But your minds,” queried Fenchurch, astonished at the frankness of the strange person/people. “You are still two separate people?”
“Oh, yes, it’s as if we are Siamese twins. Except in some things. When we want to we can let each other know what we are thinking. Hence we were able to communicate while apparently in a coma.”
“But Zaphod,” said Fenchurch, “his two heads work as one – we thought you’d be the same?”
“They do?” Trillian’s voice was tinged with irony. “Different thing. Different race – he has two heads with a shared mental capacity. That’s why he is generally so clever. Mind you, I’m sometimes not so sure about him. Sometimes its as if he’s suffers from schizophrenia.”
“Where is the loveable old fruitcake by the way?”
¨
Zaphod Beeblebrox was standing in the office of Editor of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. The Editor of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galazy was sitting in his chair, or most of him was. His head was sitting on a little black platter with his eyes still sticking out in astonishment. Arthur decided he didn’t like the way he was looking at him and put a wastepaper basket over him.
Zaphod’s eyes were also sticking out in astonishment. Gag Halfrunt had begun to relate a story that was unbelievable but strangely familiar.
"You really don't remember?" He smiled to himself and put his hand to his mouth to take another draw from his cigar, realised it wasn't there and scratched his ear instead. "My work must have been better than I'd thought."
“You have been working for me all the time.
“You see, when you first came to me saying you wanted to become President of the Galaxy but didn’t want them to find all those nasty, sneaky little thoughts lurking away in those brains of yours, I recognised that your brains were starting to become fragmented, to start acting independently of each other, like an extreme case of schizophrenia.
“ So I surgically altered your brains so there was a section in each I could put all the hidden instructions that could be called back up at a later date. Those sections only relate to each other so, when your main sections of brain finally do split they can still keep you on track. I burnt your initials in there to make you think you’d done it yourself if you ever found out.
“I also planted a few extra messages, " He wandered over to the desk and picked up another cigar. He was about to reach into his pocket for the pistol, thought better of it and lit it from the electrolighter on the desk.
Prostentic
Vogon Jeltz stood silently in the corner. He could sense that Halfrunt was
gaining the upper hand and soon they would be able to annihilate these
troublesome people forever. The orders with the tick on still nestled in his
pocket. He didn’t want to have to tear them up and start again.
Ford, Arthur and Roosta stood just behind Zaphod. They too could sense that
there was something wrong with the man from Betelguise V.
Ford glanced to the blaster pistol that Van Harl had dropped when his brain had
so suddenly lost connection with his hand.
"Zaphod, old pal,” he said, “why'd you ever get involved with this bunch of crooks?"
"Well, I dunno..." replied Zaphod, "I guess it was mostly the money..."
"But, even before you were President, you had more money than you knew what to
do with." Ford shook his head with disbelief. This dialog was, as he was hoping,
distracting Halfrunt. He edged closer to the blaster pistol. He wasn’t sure
Zaphod’s mind (or was it minds?) was on the job.
"Yeah, I lost that"
"You mean you gambled it away?"
"No, I left it in a taxi one night..."
Halfrunt butted back in, “I made sure there was a little bit in there that kept you paying my bills and made sure you would never hurt me if you ever found out.”
“Don’t you believe it.” Zaphod waved his Kill-o-Zap guns menacingly.
“Well, if you really think so, shoot me.” Gag puffed up his chest in a show of bravado.
So Zaphod shot him.
With all three Kill-o-Zaps Guns.
All that was left was a nasty black smudge on the wall.
“Loser…”
He whistled, twirled the Kill-o-Zap Guns on his fingers and blew imaginary smoke from the end of each one.
“Damn, I’m cool!” he thought to himself. Even Ford would have had to admit it was true at this point
“What about him?” said Zaphod to Arthur, pointing a gun idly at Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz who was now quivering and attempting to back further into the corner of the office. “You want me to waste this scum as well? He’s the guy that destroyed your planet after all.”
Arthur regarded the strange green form. The last time he had seen him he was a terrifying alien, reading terrible poetry at him and threatening to throw him out in to space. He was one of the first creatures from outer space he had seen and Arthur had been mortified.
Now Arthur saw him for exactly what he was. He was just the same as that dreadful little Prosser person on Earth.
“No,” he said, “He’s just a pathetic little bully. Without his pals in high places to back him up he’s nothing.”
“Besides,” added Ford, “I hear that there are some very large expenses that the Galactic Civil Service accounts department want to speak to him about. Something about the use of a constructor fleet on non-authorised business. I should think he’ll be spending the rest of his life breaking rocks in the Merrian Mines.”
They left him, a broken man, or rather, Vogon.
They walked down the corridor, went down the Happy Vertical People Transporter and out of the building.
Colin the security robot bobbed happily at Ford’s shoulder. “Oh, I’m so glad you came back, things are so much froodier when you’re around.”
¨
A short while later the door to the office swung open again.
Jeltz was still slumped in the corner of the room, looking at the floor, sobbing. He lifted his gaze to see who was there.
Framed in the doorway was a tall, thin grey-green alien figure dressed in expensive golden robes. He consulted a sort of clipboard device he was holding on one hand.
“Jeltz?” he snapped briskly. “Prostentic Vogon Jeltz?”
“Yes,” the great cowering brute replied, “that is me.”
“You’re a snivelling parasite. A complete and utter, good for nothing waste of space.” He turned sharply and walked back out to the corridor and up to the roof where his elegant spacecraft was neatly parked.
“I know, I know…” globbered Jeltz and buried his head in his hands.