The gigantic spaceport of Marchirion is one of the great sights of the universe. Any galactic hitchhiker worth his towel will have travelled through it many times and marvelled at its incredible beauty. This is all the more surprising because it is not called Marchirion, is not actually a spaceport and, depending on when you chance to visit it, it may not be that gigantic.
To explain.
The name Marchirion actually refers to the small planet that orbits the sun Xerendes just a few hundred thousand miles further in than the spaceport. The planet was originally inhabited but has now been deserted and most of its inhabitants make a living around the spaceport or have gone off to a much quieter part of the galaxy since the spaceport was built or, rather, arrived or came to be. Or just happened.
You see, Marchirion occupies a unique position at the junction of a number of intergalactic hyperspace trading and transport routes. It is effectively a hub around which a large part of the galaxy’s business rotates.
In many similar areas enterprising people have created vast spaceports to take advantage of the passing ships but at Marchirion it happened all by itself.
It started when a few trading scouts met up with a megafreighter paused between hops on its journey across the galaxy. They docked and began trading. Then another freighter arrived, began trading with the first and with the scouts. Then a third and more scouts. After a while the first left but it was soon replaced.
Before long more and more spacecraft had docked together and formed a huge mass, now gently orbiting near the planet of Marchirion. Little ion buggy craft soon started joining in from the planet bringing catering, entertainment and all the comforts of home to the traders.
Over a period of several months then stretching into years the mass grew and contracted as the trade grew and contracted. One problem that arose was that, what with all the constant coming and going, the craft at the centre of the mass sometimes had difficultly getting out. So it was decided that the ships would join in the form of a giant, hollow sphere, the only thing in the middle being shuttles scuttling to and fro.
And so it had continued, the ships coming and going and the sphere growing and shrinking with the rise and fall of the galactic economy. Sometimes the sphere will almost complete with dozens of craft coming in to join then if, say, a fleet of Arcturan Megafreighters suddenly undocks the sphere will almost collapse before re-grouping.
When approached from space the spaceport is a spectacular lattice of craft constantly changing in a poetic ballet, little flares shooting out as they guide themselves into position. No-one knows exactly how many craft are in the sphere at any one time but it is rumoured to have peaked at thirteen million shortly before the great Galactimarket crash and to have dropped to a couple of hundred during it.
Of course, all of the original craft have long since gone. Except for one.
A Yestran fur trader by the name of Bix became tangled up in the great mass before the re-organisation into a sphere came. He became so frustrated with not being able to get out of the centre of the mass that he put himself into cryogenic storage and programmed the computer to wake him when the jam cleared. Unfortunately the jam never completely cleared and he’s been there ever since and no-one has the nerve to wake him. His craft is the only permanent landmark on the great structure and everything is defined in relation to Bix’s Point.
The galactic hypership Spotinicon IV drifted gently away from the spaceport of Marchirion, its ion thrusters barely ticking over to manoeuvre it into position for the leap that would take it across several light years in the time a human would take to cross a road. As it departed a great ripple ran across the surface of the globe as smaller craft moved to fill the gap left by the enormous ship.
Fenchurch sat back in a large comfortable chair in the first class compartment. It was not often she could afford to travel first class but she had had a good week and felt she should treat herself, as this was a long journey though a pretty rough area of space.
She had been travelling around the galaxy and, indeed, many neighbouring ones, for many years now, hoping against hope that an event would occur that would take her to the same continuum as Arthur.
She remembered again of the talk she had had with Morthern all those years ago.
“PUSS” he had called it. Sounded like a cat to her. Quite ironic, really, as cats always made her sneeze and Morthern had joked about sneezes causing some people to make the jump.
She had been on every type of spaceship imaginable. She always made inquiries about any strange disappearances on flights then deliberately booked herself on the same flights.
To pay for her trips she busked in spaceports and played music in bars and clubs.
Not long after she began her travels she realised she could not do it without a source of income of some sort. Wondering how she could get some money, she noticed, in an in-flight magazine, a creature playing an instrument called a Coruvian Ajuitar. The person held it in its mouth (at least it looked like its mouth), and stroked it with long spindly fingers. An idea occurred to her.
At the next city she visited a music store and, despite the scepticism of the storekeeper, tried one out.
She found that, by inverting it from its normal position and stoking it with an electric conductor’s baton, she could play it very much like her ‘cello. The most astonishingly beautiful music came out.
The storekeeper was amazed and offered her a job in a local club that he ran. Fenchurch kept the job for a few months during which she learned more about the various races that inhabited this sector of the galaxy than she could have ever learned in any book, even the Hitchhikers Guide.
Once she had earned enough to pay for the instrument and a surplus to pay for more tickets she took up and left on another journey.
The flight attendant announced that they would shortly be making the jump to hyperspace. Fenchurch reclined her seat, put her towel between her ankles and fastened her safety harness.
She had just finished when someone spoke.
“Is this seat taken?” he said.
Fenchurch turned to face him. He was an Andalonian from the planet Fraz. She knew this because she had met people of this amazing warrior race before. He had fine golden fur covering his body and large hairy mane on his neck. His body made Charles Atlas look like a nine stone weakling and his voice was a deep gravely growl. On Earth he could have easily found a part in one of those TV productions of the C.S.Lewis books.
“No, Go ahead” she replied.
He sat and fastened his harness. His sheer bulk meant he was very close to Fenchurch, despite the size of the first class Lounge-o-seats. His mane brushed against her shoulder.
Fenchurch felt a slight tickle in her nose. She felt the rush of the jump to hyperspace.
Fenchurch sneezed.
The universe started to settle down again. No matter how many times she had done these hyperspace jumps, it still shook her up. She retrieved her towel from behind her neck.
“Excuse Me,” said a voice, “are you from Bartledan?”
She turned and found, to her surprise, that where, only a few seconds ago, there had been a magnificent Lion-Man, there was now a rather small and weedy human looking person.
She looked around in confusion. The ship was the same but the colour scheme seemed ever so slightly different. She hadn’t paid that much attention to the other passengers but they too seemed to have odd variances to what she did remember.
“It’s happened! It’s happened!” she shrieked, leaping up from her seat, “After all this time it has finally happened. My wish has come true.”
The little man looked rather puzzled, “Oh, I’m sorry… I only asked if…?”
Fenchurch looked down at him. “What?”
“… you were from Bartledan. But now I see you couldn’t possibly be. No, not if you’ve been wishing. We don’t you see. Wish that is.”
It was Fenchurch’s turn to be puzzled. “Sorry, what?” then, recognising the man’s confusion, “It’s just I was rather excited about something.”
“No,” she continued, answering is question at last, “I’m from a little Planet out in the western spiral arm called Earth. I don’t suppose you’ve heard of it.”
“Goodness me, what a coincidence!” replied the man, “ we had someone living in our village for a while who came from there. Strange fellow, very tall, used to sit around reading all the time. Then he’d get up and throw the book away in a fit of anger. Name of Art-Err, I seem to remember.”
“Art-Err?… Arthur! You’ve met Arthur!” Fenchurch’s calm deserted her again, “Where? When? How can I get to this Barternan place?”
“Bartledan” he corrected her, “Well, I can give you a space-route map but he left a long time ago. Went off to get himself a life, so he said.”
Fenchurch paused, deflated, and thought for a moment. When she spoke again, it was in a quieter, friendlier manner. She was concerned her previous barrage of questions might have scared him.
“My name’s Fenchurch” she said, offering a hand, “I’m sorry I startled you.”
He clasped her hand warmly “I’m Hadderon.”
“He did the shaking hands bit as well.” He continued, “confused everybody for a while but, in the end, we really rather liked it. Nice way of greeting people.”
They spent the rest of the trip conversing. Fenchurch found it rather odd talking to him as he never paused for breath but she was so delighted to know that she was in the same universe as Arthur. Even if she had missed him on Bartledan, at least she felt her chances of finding him had improved by a huge factor.
When they reached their destination and, as she left the spaceship, she said goodbye to Hadderon and he said, “I wish you good luck! I don’t really know what that means but I wish you it anyway.”
Hadderon had said there was only one ship out from Bartledan, which went to the giant spaceport at Granetaur.
She flipped open he guide to look it up. As she did, she noticed the last entry she had been looking at had changed. Odd.
She decided to check the one for Earth. She typed in the code, which she knew by heart.
“Invalid entry” beeped the guide.
She tried again, again “Invalid Entry”.
She did a fresh search for “Earth”. “Not found”
She stood, bemused for a moment then decided she would sort out what this meant later.
She located Granetaur and started to plot her route towards it.
It was several hundred light years from where she was to Granetaur and she decided that, rather than run the risk that Arthur had headed towards where she had come from, she would check passenger lists on flights coming the other way, just in case.
She spent some time doing this at several ports.
Most of the ticket clerks were helpful when she explained what she wanted to do, the others usually responded to bribery or threats.
At Aldertroid, she had just finished a computer search on the last flight out when something caught her eye. She wasn’t sure what at fist but something…
She scanned the list again. There it was.
“Prefect, Ford, Betelguise, Researcher.”
She asked the clerk to look up the details.
He had boarded a freighter only two days earlier bound for a planet called “Saquo-Pilia Hensha.”
“That planet’s name sounds familiar,” she thought to herself and she punched it into the Guide.
It was the biggest entry she’d ever seen in the guide, lavishly illustrated.
Saquo-Pilia Hensha
The hippest, froodiest, happeningest planet in the whole galaxy. Where every day is a holiday and there’s a new carnival for every reason you can imagine and a few you probably can’t.
It went on to describe the hundreds of bars, clubs and joints that covered the planet.
It described many of the dozens of festivals that took place, seemingly all the time, including the famous Feast of the Assumption of St Antwelm.
There were adverts for Hunt the Wocket teams, Mind Surfing clubs, Flying Schools (with or without flying machines she noted) and Cocktail mixing classes. There was accommodation that ranged from Luxo-palace hotels to the extreme budget end of the market where you get to sleep with a wide variety of species in what amounts to a large shoebox.
“Sounds like Ford’s sort of place” she thought to herself.
Then she saw, right at the end: -
Saquo-Pilia Hensha,
Home of the HitchHiker’s Guide to the Galaxy™,
An Infinidim Company.
“So that’s why he’s going there,” Fenchurch guessed. Then she thought, “He might have seen Arthur.”
She hesitated for a moment. If she continued to Granetaur, she might never know if Ford had met Arthur.
If she followed him, who knows what might happen.
She thanked the ticket clerk and asked him for a seat on the next flight to Saquo-Pilia Hensha.